Translate

Friday 2 September 2011

When Currencies Corrupt

The pound in your pocket probably isn't worth what you think it is .... not because there is particularly any intrinsic problem with the pound on the international market, but because the pound coin is prone to forgery or copying. The Royal Mint surveys suggest that around 1 in 40 (or 2.89%) of pound coins are forged in the UK, but so far has resisted the calls to recall and scrap all current designs and issue a new set.

South Africa, with an actual forged rate of around 2.5% had to recall and reissue a 5 rand coins when taxi drivers started to refuse them (5 rand is a lot to a taxi driver in South Africa), and public confidence in the coin collapsed .... ironically, many of the UK forgeries are too good and therefore are still usable, so confidence hasn't collapsed, but it can't be too long before a tipping point is reached.

An informal poll in my local pub (we all checked the £1 coins in our pockets) suggested that the 2.89% figure in the UK is on the low side ... a figure of 1 in 10 was more like it. Of course the irony is that we moved to metal pounds to give them a longer life, little thinking that the forgers would immediately move in (Pound notes were notoriously difficult to forge, and hard to pass off), and necessitate recalls at vast expense.

In the US, attempts to introduce the $Dollar coin, have failed because public confidence failed in them before they were properly issued, not because of forgeries, but because the public don't want them. Mind you if the cost of the base metals used to create the forgeries, such as brass and lead, rise enough, then they aren't going to be used for forgeries.

Sometimes the best laid schemes of mice and men and all that ....

The Coin on the left is obviously a cruder version
This suspicion is confirmed by poor text impression on rim

These photos were taken from two coins I found out of the twelve in my pocket ..... Just check your pockets now ....  but shh, remember its illegal to pass them off to anyone, and the banks don't exchange them for good coins.

PS: I took some £2 coins to the bank a couple of days after this post ... one was declared a forgery, and the bank took it off me with no compensation. So there you are.

2 comments:

  1. Prime Minister 'Harold Wilson' one said that 'The pound in your pocket is still worth as much as it was before' after a devaluation to get us out the cycle of 'Boom and Bust' economics (were have we heard that before?).

    Mind you that was the paper pound note, so may have been true.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry for the late response ... thanks for the comment.

      Delete

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.

Followers

Blog Archive

Its a Pucking World

Its a Pucking World
Dreamberry Wine Cover

About Me

My photo
A middle aged orange male ... So 'un' PC it's not true....