I had a bag of foreign coinage that was purchased a while back. As I didn’t have time to sort through it, I’ve forgotten about it after a couple of years. Yesterday, I rediscovered it, and thought it would be an interesting weekend activity. However, one of the coins happened to be quite distinctive- an old English pound. These “round pounds” were meant for the replacement of £1 notes, and were first minted in 1983. Old paper £1 notes were withdrawn in 1984. Recently, in an effort to thwart forgers, the Royal Mint last issued the round pound in 2016, and introduced a dodecagonal bimetallic pound in that same year. The British Museum happens to have a display of counterfeit round pounds that have been seized. The last day for spending old £1 coins was October 15, 2017. So, I missed that deadline by almost 2 years. Now, the coin has to be exchanged by being taken to a bank (in the UK). That seems like too much hassle for just 1 pound. Comparison of 1991 £1, and 2016 £1 I received on my trip to the UK last year.
At least they have a lot of interesting designs. Though from what I read, a large percentage were counterfeited.
One way of making the old £1 coins was to set up a mint and produce them. At least that is what the "European Central Mint", a private mint in Amsterdam, did. They had an official minting contract with Suriname, but their production obviously focused on not-quite-so-legal activities ... Christian
"...to thwart forgers..." Golly, I never would have guessed. Maybe there's an article on how to spot and collect them? Google: "round pound forgeries": http://www.thefakepoundcoindatabase.co.uk/
Surprising. Although several are obvious fakes, a couple of the coins posted on the site would be hard to tell apart from real ones.
And to think that once upon a time, a British pound was worth well over $4. How the mighty have fallen; I guess two world wars will do that to you.
