British currency

The Bank of England is just starting on a new series of notes - £5 (Winston Churchill) this year and £10 (Jane Austen) next year. Be a while before the current Fry and Darwin notes are withdrawn though.

In 2008, we bought some British pounds at a bank in Seattle. When we were at the Chelsea Flower Show, none of the vendors would take our money.

£1 notes? They went out of circulation in March 1988! Where on earth did they even find them? An archaeological dig?

If it makes you feel any better I find US notes confusing because they all look the same.

Indeed. Why does America think it's a great idea to have notes of the same size and colour differentiated by small numbers and pictures of men in wigs?

I'm glad someone started this thread.
I've got a small tin box full of English currency...since 1987. That was my last trip there. I am returning in May and wondering if I should bring any of it along for the public toilets, etc., or if it is just going to be a major pain in the rump with airport security and metal detectors. I don't have any pound notes of any denomination.

As far as I know, there are no local banks in my area who will turn the coins into bills.

Open to suggestions! Thanks!

I don't think the pence coins are confusing, and if it is your first trip then after a couple of days it shouldn't be confusing.

Sandra, if you have copper coins, 1p and 2p, then they are still valid. As are £1 and 20p coins. However the 5p, 10p and 50p coins have shrunk since 1987 and the larger versions of these coins have been demonetised.

Thank you! I think I've got all kinds. I think in '87 the pound coins were brand new.

I also had a hard time differentiating between the coinage. Also add in the factor that I have old eyes and would need reading glasses to figure out what is what. I would just show the clerk my coins and apologetically say "I'm sorry, I still have a hard time figuring out your coins." They would take what they needed and we would be on our merry way.

The value of the coins of the previous design were clear to everyone from the large numerals - deliberately so since they were the designs from decimalisation when everyone would have been unfamiliar with them. Sadly the current coins are poor in this regard, having their value spelt out in English words in small letters. I'd be glad to see the back of them and their disjointed design.

Pound coins change to a 12-sided bimetallic coin in 2017 but the current ones will be around for a while after that, probably 2-3 years.

The 5p is probably the worst of the current bunch Marco points out. If you compare it with the decimalisation design of the same value, the clarity of the older ones makes the design look newer. Same with the other coins, but the one that really stands out for me is the 5p.

The coins are different sizes, shapes and colours. It could not be any simpler to understand.

What I you whining about? When I first went to school they taught us real money - £sd
12 pence = one shilling (1/- = 12d)
20 shillings = one pound (£1 = 20/-)
So that is 240 pence in a pound. And before my time there was also 4 Farthings = 1 penny (written= "¼d"). So that made 980 Farthings = 1 pound.

And a pound was so large (well it was before inflation), that prices were quoted in shillings, so you sometimes saw 30/6 instead of £1/10/6, both being of course the same amount.
And, shillings being for "normal" shopping, there were two alternative denominations above it, the pound (20 shillings) or the Guinea (21 shillings). So something expensive migh be advertised at "5 Guineas."
Like this advert I spotted: Price 30 Guineas, deposit 30/11!
And the coins: ½d, 1d, 3d, 6d, 1/-, 2/-, 2/6d, the notes started with the ten shilling note.

Today's money is much too simple, makes you lazy about mental arithmetic.

Chris F, thanks for your treatise on old Brit currency. I'm constantly confused by the signage in old British films. It's as confusing as Cricket!

It was jolly nice under the old money.

After all, you could just about buy the world with half a Crown, 2/6.

All the coins had names. Tanner, thruppenny bit, florin, Half Crown, Crown (never saw very many of those), ten bob note...

Now it is properly boring. 1 pence, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence. Or abbreviate each as 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p. How boring is that! The language lost a lot of its warmth and interest when decimalisation came in that 15th of February 1971. A sad day.

I was a kid and used to show off how well I could make change and add up in old money, and we had one of the old mechanical tills that you had to be a bit of a contortionist to use. Made typing on a manual typewriter look easy.

US currency has been using color for several years now. The 5s have big purple "5"s on the back, the 10s are orange-tinged, etc. At any rate, the denomination is shown in each corner of the bill. Not sure why it would be confusing. Of course, there are still a large number of the old bills around, though.

I didn't really take note of how many darn coins the Brits have under 50p until we went over last year! We would have so many of those darn 1 and 2p coins in our pockets.

I guess since Canada did away with the penny, we now have (c = cent) 5c, 10c, 25c...that's it for coins under a dollar. Then we have the $1 and $2 coin...all those darn coins are for the birds (6 coins under 50p...shakes head!)

Seems a touch unnecessary :) I hate carrying change, but also hate standing around for a minute+ counting out the 1/2/5p pieces...

Never had issues with foreign coins. Of course I never went to the UK when they still had the Pound, shilling, pence money scheme!

I do find it more convenient and quicker to simply hand the clerk a note and then pocket the change instead of counting out coins in some cases (and even more convenient to just use a credit card!), but I do spend the coins whenever possible and because of this I don't find I have too many in my pocket at any one time. Last trip I simply used the random coins to top up my Oyster card.

The US is fairly unique in the world where every bank note ever issued retains its face value and can be used to pay anyone. Although I bet you would get a funny look if you used a 1900 series note as they do look really different than current ones (and are worth significantly more to collectors so you probably don't actually want to spend that note). The UK does tend to swap out their bank notes often so it could be easy for a bank in the US to get stuck with some recently outdated notes.