Worthless Royal Mint Commems....

Interesting. Story says commemorative coins sold on the RCM mint site stating the coins are legal tender, aren't legal tender after all. At first I thought they were fake coins, but nope. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...irmiles-cash-bank-s-refusing-accept-them.html

 

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Royal Mint not RCM (Royal Canadian Mint)

 

Wow. I had actually considered buying some of their "face value" coins. What do you have to lose? You get a precious metal collector coin, and you pay face value for it. Well, now I know that is not true. I think the mint just hurt future sells by admitting their "face value" coins are indeed NOT worth face value.

 

I actually heard it was both mints (RM and RCM). But mostly with the RM.

 

The royal mint has since added this info to their website. This used to not be there.... haha:

http://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/policies-and-guidelines/legal-tender-guidelines

 

Legal tender is a widely misunderstood concept. All it means for something to be legal tender is that it must be accepted for the settlement of certain debts. It doesn't mean the bank has to accept it for deposit or that you can use it to buy groceries, although, practically speaking, a bank or grocery store that refused to accept cash at all would quickly go out of business.

 

From RCM website:

I would say the majority would not accept it for two main reasons. They would have no idea what they are looking at when they receive the coin and the process may not be worth it for individual coins.

I expect some of the bigger banks such as CIBC (who sells NCLT on their website), or Scotiabank would accept them depending on the knowledge of each branch.

 

I spend the RCM $20 for $20 coins all the time at my Starbucks... they like them!!

 

So their definition of legal tender could be used for discrimination. Don't want to serve a certain group of people? Just tell them whatever form of payment they want to use is not acceptable at the moment. Bull crap if you ask me.

 

what stupidity!

 

True, but in various countries you can at least take such sort-of-coins to the central bank and get the amount in circulation coins or notes. Here in the euro area for example, EU law says about collector coins (as opposed to circulation and commemorative coinage) that "Member States shall take all appropriate measures to discourage the use of collector coins as a means of payment." (Reg. 651/2012) Whatever that practically means ...

Now whether any store would accept my €10 or €20 collector coins for a payment, I don't know. Probably not, but I could always take such "odd" coins to a branch office of the central bank. Would that be possible with the Bank of England? The Daily Mail article and the followup text does not specifically address that question.

Christian

 

Shades of the US Mint Presidential Bulk Coin program from a few years ago. There's always someone out there playing the angles........

 

Yeah if you popped in my store with this thing I would refuse it too...

 

That is one of the ugliest coins I've ever seen. Actually all the German Euro commems look pretty ugly, but this has to be the worst.

 

Oh, snap= So THAT'S why I've been having a hard time trying to spend my "Flaming Skull Maple Leaf" black-painted silver $5 coins at my local Tim Horton's!

Dang. I was sooo hoping that they were real money.

 

Those have a "face value" of 5 dollars. I would be happy to exchange $5 for one if you want If the mint sold them for that, I would buy them up. That's what makes this irritating... they sold a coin for the price they put on their, meaning you would think they could not go below "face value".

 

That one is a collector coin, not a commemorative coin. Utterly bland indeed, but if you dislike all the German pieces (or just the ones that say "euro"), good for me and the other euro collectors. Now all that does not really answer the question of whether there is any "guaranteed" way of getting the Royal Mint's £50, £100 etc. issues exchanged. They may well be worth more than face if you sell them to a dealer, but if neither the mint nor the BoE will let you turn them in ...

Christian

 

Doesn't it say "50 years of German Television" and have a TV on it? Sounds like it's commemorating 50 years of TV to me? I guess I don't get your distinction in this case.

 

No idea what that TV coin has to do with the topic. Anyway, see here:
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/euro/cash/coins/pdf/types_coins_en.pdf

Christian

 

Because we all know you love love love spending them and driving store clerks bonkers