BRITS RUSHED TO SPEND OLD ROUND POUND COINS

Brits have just hours left to spend their old round £1 coins as hundreds of millions of the old pounds are estimated to still be in circulation.

As of midnight on Sunday, the old pound coin will no longer be legal tender, replaced by the new design which was launched in March.

Some stores, including Tesco, have pledged to let people continue spending their round pounds for a limited period of extra time, despite the Royal Mint’s deadline of tonight.

On Saturday, it was estimated around 400 to 450 million old round coins are still lying around unspent. People had been offloading their old coins at a rate of around 60 million a week in the lead up to tonight’s deadline.

Major banks and building societies have said they will continue to accept deposits of the old round pound after the deadline on Sunday October 15.

One pound coins were first launched on April 21 1983 to replace £1 notes. The Royal Mint has produced more than two billion round pound coins since that time.

The new 12-sided pound coin, which resembles the old threepenny bit, entered circulation in March and boasts new high-tech security features to thwart counterfeiters.

The production of the new coins follows concerns about round pounds being vulnerable to sophisticated counterfeiters. Around one in every 30 old-style pound coins in people's change in recent years has been fake.

On October 24th David added:

To read the complete article, see:
Old £1 coin: Hours left to spend round pound as 'hundreds of millions' are still in circulation (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/old-1-coin-hours-left-to-spend-round-pound-as-hundreds-of-millions-still-in-circulation-a3658936.html)

UNREDEEMED BRITISH POUND COINS

The October 15th deadline came and passed. Citizens of the UK were required to turn in their old one-pound round coin to be replaced by the new 12-sided bimetallic, lettered edge, one pound coin. But 450 million still remain in the public hands.

It was estimated one in ten of the old round one pound coins in circulation were counterfeit. The British Royal Mint spent months creating a coin that was as nearly counterfeit proof as they could devise. They were first launched on April 21, 1983 to replace green £1 notes and since then two billion have been produced.

In addition to its 12 sides with edge lettering and two color bimetallic composition, it bares a hologram where the pound sign morphs into a figure 1 with a slight tilt. It also has micro letters just inside the rim on each side.

Describing the composition's term "bimetallic" is somewhat of a misnomer. Both are base metal copper nickel just the finish is different with the queen in gold color brass finish, the ring in copper nickel gray. Having both the center plug and the outer ring in copper nickel utilizes the metal recycled from melting the old one pound coins. A brilliant move in scrap technology as the old one pound coins were entirely copper nickel.

Citizens were supposed to spend their old one-pound coins before October 15 or deposit in a bank or other institution. The unspent coins now have no legal status, but they are still being accepted by banks at full value, and even some merchants attempting to increase sales.

Because of its value, the one-pound coin is different from the one penny when that coin was demonetized in 1970. Entrepreneur Bob Bashlow bought hundreds of thousands and imported these into the US. He sold these to collectors as singles, sets and sets in Whitman albums.

However the world collector market cannot absorb but a tiny amount of those 450 million unredeemed British old pound coins

To read the complete article, see:
Deadline on old pound coins extended by High Street stores as 450 million still in use (http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/deadline-old-pound-coins-extended-11337991)

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