A new £1 coin with 12 “sides” is being launched in March 2017. The old £1 coin will cease to be legal tender in October 2017. People are being advised to cash in their piggy bank and whisky bottle collections as soon as possible so they don’t lose out.
Apparently, there is £45 million worth of counterfeit £1 coinage circulating in the UK. I can well believe it – I regularly get obviously fake coins in my change. You can tell by how rough they look, their colour, and (in many cases) the fact that machines frequently won’t take them. I have to be honest when I say it is a major pain when you want to buy a parking ticket and the only £1 coin in your pocket gets repeatedly spat out by the ticket machine. Fortunately, handing these coins off to someone else isn’t a problem.
I saw an article a few months ago where supermarkets were saying that shopping trolleys were able to accept the new coins. I don’t think Asda falls in that bracket. When I shopped there last Saturday, I used my trolley token on my key ring to release a trolley as usual. Tonight, I noticed that the chains and keys had been removed from all trolleys!
This could go one of two ways. Either Asda has removed the chains prior to having new mechanisms fitted. Or it has just dealt with the new coin problem by ensuring that half the trolleys end up adorning verges and off-road footpaths by mid-summer. I’ll wait a little longer before commenting further.
Incidentally, being able to take card payments from pupils has significantly reduced the risk of being handed counterfeit notes (and coins) when receiving payments for lessons. I used to hate getting £50 notes in payment for 2 hour lessons because a lot of places won’t accept them since so many are counterfeit.