Love that coin
The new £1 Coin
181–190 of 421 posts
Re: The new £1 Coin
#182For a moment I thought/hoped the UK would introduce an official cryptocurrency...
I kinda hoped that they'd include something like an RFID chip with something like a certificate inside, signed by the royal mint (Turkish government recently switched IDs to something like that). That'd allow verifying every single new coin (unless it is damaged to the level of breaking the rfid chip, but I suppose that's not that easy). It'd also enable tracking. I kinda regret that idea now. BUT if used responsibly…
Maybe that is the "hidden feature" that they describe on the linked page.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#183What I don't get is why we need coins anymore? Can't they just make £1 pound note same to the £5 one? I am always annoyed when I got coins on me and I never pay attention to them. Why not make £1 worth more by making it a note? Why not move away from notes nowadays? Is there any specific reason to that? Is there just too much metal sitting around that they thought that would be an ok use of it?
Notes need to be replaced much more often than coins, making them significantly more expensive. There are actually people arguing for doing the exact opposite of what you suggest in the US - replacing all $1 notes with $1 coins to save money.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#184Why not make the new £1 coin Euro compatible? Despite Brexit and all, it would make so much sense to share the same dimensions for the pound and the Euro. Old pound: diameter 22.5 mm, thickness 3.15 mm. New pound: diameter 22.63 - 23.43mm [1], thickness 2.8 mm. Euro: diameter 23.25 mm, thickness 2.33 mm. So close and yet so different! Why??!? Edit: Okay, I'm not sure why I saw "so much sense" in having the pound and…
Because then vending machines would accept Euro coins as well as pound coins and you would be able to obtain goods for 60%(?) of the asking price??
Modern vending machines are not so easily fooled.
But, the old UK 5 pence and German 1 mark coins had quite similar dimensions, and were made from the same material, so vending machines at that time were fooled by the 5p, which was worth much less than the mark. I understand that truckloads of coins were sent back to Britain as a result.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#185What I don't get is why we need coins anymore? Can't they just make £1 pound note same to the £5 one? I am always annoyed when I got coins on me and I never pay attention to them. Why not make £1 worth more by making it a note? Why not move away from notes nowadays? Is there any specific reason to that? Is there just too much metal sitting around that they thought that would be an ok use of it?
We used to have pound notes, and they're still technically in circulation in Scotland (although I've never seen one). According to wikipedia they were withdrawn because: "Part of the reason for this change was that notes, on average, lasted only nine months in general circulation, while coins could last forty years or more. The government also believed that the growing vending industry would benefit from the introduc…
> So maybe the fiver is next.
Something like that is already being discussed on the continent.
The memorial 5€ coin recently (which is legal tender) wasn’t just that, but it was also a test if a 5€ coin would be accepted, and doable.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#186What I don't get is why we need coins anymore? Can't they just make £1 pound note same to the £5 one? I am always annoyed when I got coins on me and I never pay attention to them. Why not make £1 worth more by making it a note? Why not move away from notes nowadays? Is there any specific reason to that? Is there just too much metal sitting around that they thought that would be an ok use of it?
Pound Notes are way more expensive to produce than pound coins (given lifetime of note vs coin)
Re: The new £1 Coin
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was cheated in the most crude way in London once - gentlemen selling African street food gave me (in my change, amongst other coins) a coin that looks and feels very much like a British pound, but is Ugandian (IIRC) and has some kind of ostrich-like bird's head on it instead of the Queen's.
It happens a lot around here (in New York, a few hours from the Canadian border) with Canadian coins. Obviously it's a bit different here, as the values are roughly the same, but I can see how that would happen as an honest mistake.
I've done it both ways with Korean and Japanese coins because they look nearly identical, I assume due to the colonial past. The values differ by 10x.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#188For a moment I thought/hoped the UK would introduce an official cryptocurrency...
I kinda hoped that they'd include something like an RFID chip with something like a certificate inside, signed by the royal mint (Turkish government recently switched IDs to something like that). That'd allow verifying every single new coin (unless it is damaged to the level of breaking the rfid chip, but I suppose that's not that easy). It'd also enable tracking. I kinda regret that idea now. BUT if used responsibly…
> (Turkish government recently switched IDs to something like that).
That’s actually quite an old idea – most european countries’ IDs just have a normal smartcard in them, allowing normal signing and verification.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
So there was no point in doing it? This seems super weird for a financial institution that should be looking at hard data; maybe they did some analysis about the increasing ease of forgery?
I would suspect the rate of introduction is increasing. So while maybe it took 20 years to circulate this 45m amount, they may expect the next 45m to come though in a few years. That and pride/confidence in money validity. This is my guess and not fact.
Anecdata, I know - but certainly even 5 years ago it was rare for me to spot a forgery in my change. Over the last few years I found more and more - so I'd think that the process and cost for creating fakes is dropping. Though since contactless payment has been around I can honestly say I've spent actual cash about 4 times this year so far, so my collection of 'interesting coins' has not been added to like it once was.
Re: The new £1 Coin
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
The new coin is still called "pound", so indeed the statement makes no sense.
It won't be round though, it'll be dodecahedral. It makes perfect sense, but has two possible meanings.
Yes he knows; he's saying that the pun is a bit shit because only one of the two meanings is actually true.