Details of the New King Charles III Coins to enter circulation before the end of the year

Maybe they’ll be out by the time I’m there in early December.

They are just lovely--and I am especially fond of squirrels.

Wow! I love those. The designs are fitting considering Charles’ love of gardening and his passion for conservation and the environment.

Royal mint website. Uncirculated, proofs and first and last sets --https://www.royalmint.com/annual-sets/2023/definitives/

They are so cool! Love the puffin!

When I saw them posted on a friend’s FB page I could not tell what the image on the penny was. Sort of looked like a one-eyed crone which I couldn’t quite square with Charles and the nature theme. Turns out it’s a hazel dormouse. Have an appointment with my ophthalmologist next week, thank you.

They are so completely different - although I did give a wry smile at the comment 'coins will help children to identify figures and learn to count'....

These are so wonderful! As a huge animal lover, I absolutely love the animal faced ones! Can’t wait to return and hopefully see them, use them in person!

Out of curiosity I went to the Royal Canadian Mint website and it's in the design stages of new Canadian coins with King Charles on them. From what I'm reading it will just be the effigy face of the coin that will be changed and not a complete redesign like in the UK.

My favorite is the 1 pence hazel dormouse. In fact, I didn't know dormouses were real. I always thought they were fictional animals in children's books. 😊 I also love the bees. I'm really hoping they are out by March/April of next year. I would love to grab some as souvenirs for my grandchildren.

Cute puffin. …. Will bring some home if they are out in time while we are there

I love the new coins! Definitely influenced by King Charles' love of nature.
Love the puffin and the dormouse.
Perhaps the bees are a nod to his late mother.
Queen Elizabeth was a beekeeper and was quite serious about taking an active part in the keeping of the hives and harvesting of the honey.

There was a great program on PBS, "The Queen's Garden" a couple of years ago
that took the viewer on a tour of the Buckingham Palace grounds and forest.
It showed her with her beekeeper, as they were tending the hives.
She was dressed out to be a beekeeper, too.

I believe there are also hives at Windsor.
The Windsor Farm Shop is some distance away from the castle and sells the honey from the Queen's bees and their other farm products.
https://www.windsorfarmshop.co.uk/

I love coins, and these are very nice. But I can't help thinking, who is going to use them in today's world, where everything is contactless cards and electronic payments, and the advice of forum users who have traveled to Britain is often not even to get any cash at all (or maybe just a minimal amount for some unusual situation where it's still needed)?

There's still plenty of people using cash. Definitely enough to warrant minting a new coin. How far into the future that will continue to be the case? Not so sure.

Well, for instance, anyone who watched this weeks MNT would have heard that only about 1/2 the parking machines on Dartmoor accept credit/debit cards. That is going in the next RS guidebook revision. The rest is coins. I can think of a good few car parks where I live where that is also true.

And there is nothing to stop anyone who WANTS to spend cash in the UK doing so. If you want to use cards do so, but there is always the option to use cash. I know quite a few cafes where I live who only accept cash, I've been caught out by that several times recently. Yes I suspect such places as being fraudulent on their tax, but that is by the by.

And on quite a few bus lines I have reverted to using cash on lines where they no longer give you tickets, so you have zero proof of what you spent. In Birmingham there is some idiocy of swiping on and off the bus- which left me nervous about the motive for that as it is a flat fare system. So on Wednesday when I am there I will pay cash.

I don't know specifically about buses in Birmingham but swipe off as well as on might be related to capping within a zone. For example if I only use buses within the local zone to me the daily cap is £3 but travel outside that it is £7 or £9 depending how far. Now for a simple return the latter two are currently irrelevant with the flat fare so tapping out isn't necessary, but for the first it isn't.

The point is totally missed, as often by the disciples of contactless. If I don't get a receipt (in the shape of a bus ticket in this case) then I have no proof of what I agreed to pay, in the case of fraud (intentional, or by a system error). If I ask for a single fare then I don't need to be second guessed that I meant something else.

My money is my money, period, not for others to dip their sticky fingers into as and when they wish.

And I am a very experienced and knowledgeable traveller- in Birmingham there is no capping, but a rover ticket which is currently worth it after three journeys. But if I ask for a single, I mean a single, not a return, a day rover or anything else so stop playing games of swipe on, swipe off. Do that, and I am entitled to assume malicious intentions, and thus pay in a way which mitigates against too much being taken.

In reality if I arrive in the West Midlands by coach I will buy a £3 all day local buses add on to my coach ticket- which actually takes me beyond the West Midlands area into surrounding counties. If I arrive by train I will buy a Plus Bus ticket for £2.60, but that stops at the County Borders.

Likewise if I visit Oxford or anywhere else I will have done my research, and will know what ticket suits me, and will ask for that.

This is a discussion group for sharing experiences, maybe adding little bits of knowledge here and there even to the experienced. There are in most cases no indisputably right answers, only options and people can pick and choose what they prefer.

You specifically queried why tap on and tap off was required in a specific circumstance in Birmingham. I advanced a particular reason from my own experience. It may or may not be right. I wasn't advocating that you did it at all . I thought this point could be of more interest generally though as this method is commonly found in many places these days as capping becomes more common and its interaction with the £2 flat fare.

I am totally not a fan of not just contactless, but the diminution of the use of physical money for all kinds of reasons way beyond the scope of a travel forum.
But among many other things it does lead to a potential loss of control over personal finances. And for some, potential spending beyond their means.

And also not a fan of capping, because you simply don't know if it is going to work as advertised. And have little comeback if you are overcharged because the cap hasn't worked as advertised.

There is little obvious reason why rover tickets, where you pay a set sum up front, can not continue to be used. Ones, like in Cornwall, where the ticket has a QR code to be scanned on each bus as you enter. Computer can't then say NO, as the top half of the ticket is also proof of what has been paid and ticket type purchased if for some reason the QR code doesn't work.

So in Oxford have a £3, £7 or £9 rover, rather than capping.

There are some bus companies, notably West Coast Motors (in Scotland) and it's subsidiaries which I simply won't use anymore because of the huge price differentials between ticket prices on their app and in person- whether paid by contactless or in cash. Demanding in effect that all travellers have smart phones and are constantly connected. As I've seen tonight on a you tube video about Traws Cymru the app sometimes just ceases to work.

The discouragement by bus operators from cash & tickets is at least in part to speed up operations getting people onto the buses & away (as well as the handling cost). Mind you there wasn't a problem with that back in the day of conductors!

Few have taken the ultimate step of elimination of cash altogether though. I struggle to think of anywhere outside of London but there may well be more.

The main wrinkle in Oxford is the petty difference between single operator day tickets and multiple ones. Apparently they are now instructed to sell the latter if not specified.