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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Dafydd, post: 2917434, member: 86815&quot;]There was a real issue with counterfeit pound coins Kasia as even sophisticated vending machines with proximity switches would fail to reject fakes and the bulk of the vending machines worked on weight and dimensions and many gave change. It was also believed that the 1 in 30 ratio was spurious and it was higher. During a radio debate 20 random coins were examined and 5 found to be fake! Imagine 25% of one dollar bills being counterfeit!</p><p>They were pretty easy to spot because usually the obverse was misaligned with the reverse and even if the reverse was 10 degrees off it denoted a fake. As many were brass they did not &quot;ring&quot; if you dropped them onto a hard surface. </p><p>Counterfeiting used to be a capital offence on the charge of High Treason and the last two counterfeiters were hung in 1827 for faking George IV Sovereigns.</p><p>Fake coins may become a thing of the past in the UK because our Canadian Governor of the Bank of England advocates a cashless society. Of course this is because we will all be &quot;safer&quot; but a nice bonus for the Government will be that even a 10 cent purchase will be recorded and tax deducted at source and our sales tax in the UK is a universal 20%. </p><p>We are blessed with a constant change in our currency as our Royal Mint who are&nbsp; based here in Wales have a commercial business as well as their standard coinage responsibilities and this is driven by collectors. The Mint also sells old coins to collectors but these are at a high premium because they have COA&#039;s sold with them and they are usually purchased by new collectors or those simply interested in acquiring some historical artefacts. They are actually doing a service to the numismatics community by stimulating interest in the hobby.</p><p>If you PM your address I will be pleased to send you a couple of old pounds.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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