UK: Polymer £5 and £50 Banknotes Soon?

Started by Bimat, September 04, 2011, 07:49:42 AM

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Bimat

Hindu temples ban new 'animal fat' £5 note

Faith organisation says the new £5 note 'ceases to be a simple medium of exchange but becomes a medium for communicating pain and suffering'.

Will Worley

Hindu temples have banned the new five pound note after it was revealed that it contained animal fat.

Last week, it was revealed that the banknotes contain tallow, which comes from beef or mutton fat.

As well as outraging vegetarians and vegans, the news also caused concern among members of the Hindu community, who view cows as sacred.

Now, some Hindu temples have decided to ban the note on their premises.

The Bhaktivedanta Manor, a Hare Krishna temple in Hertfordshire, posted a photo of a sign to Facebook which said: "We no longer accept the new five pound notes as they contain animal fat. Apologies for the inconvenience."

The National Council of Hindu Temples has issued a statement against the new material and said the money "ceases to be a simple medium of exchange but becomes a medium for communicating pain and suffering and we would not want to come into contact with it."

The statement continued: "We are very comfortable that this has happened without any malicious intent but merely out of ignorance and a lack of sensitivity and knowledge and it seems that steps are being taken to ensure that this error is corrected.

"We look forward to being able to identify which notes are contaminated and learning of their prompt withdrawal and replacement with 'Karma free notes'."

Satish Sharma from the Council told the BBC he knew of at least three temples which are not accepting the banknotes.

However, while "disappointed" at the use of tallow in the tender, other temples have agreed to continue using it.

The Shree Sanatan temple in Leicester has launched a campaign to have the note replaced.

"We are very disappointed to learn that the new £5.00 note contains traces of animal fat," a statement on the temple's website said. "We will make our devotees aware of the content of the new £5.00 note and encourage them not to utilise it in our main prayer hall.

"Being a charity organisation that relies solely on public donations we will reluctantly continue to accept the new £5.00 on our premises for the time being.

"We urge the Bank of England to expedite a rectification on this matter."

A petition to remove tallow from the bank notes has received more than 120,000 signatures.

Source: The Independent
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Bimat

£5 note 'worth £50,000' found in Christmas card

A £5 note engraved with a tiny portrait of Jane Austen and said to be worth up to £50,000 has been found in a Christmas card.

The second of four special £5 notes featuring art by specialist micro-engraver Graham Short turned up on Thursday in Scotland.

The first was found in change from a café in south Wales earlier this month.

Two more special £5 notes, spent in England and Northern Ireland, remain in general circulation.

The two banknotes bear the serial numbers AM32 885552 and AM32 885554.

Anyone finding one of the notes has been advised to contact the Tony Huggins-Haig Gallery in Kelso, in the Scottish Borders, which launched the project.

Mr Huggins-Haig told BBC WM the recipient of the latest note, who had checked the note "on the off chance", wished to remain anonymous.

"When somebody opened their Christmas card from a loved one, it was contained in that Christmas card," he said.

"The person who put it in didn't necessarily know what they were doing.

"That's two down and there's still two out there. Keep checking your change."

The banknotes have the following serial numbers and quotes:

- AM32 885551: "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more," from the Austen novel, Emma

- AM32 885552: "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love," from Pride and Prejudice

- AM32 885553: "A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of," from the Austen novel, Mansfield Park

- AM32 885554: "I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good," from Pride and Prejudice

Mr Short, from Birmingham, came up with the idea of engraving a 5mm portrait of Jane Austen on the transparent part of the new plastic Bank of England £5 notes to mark the 200th anniversary of her death next year.

He has included a different quote around each one ensuring that each note is unique.

Both recipients have so far stated they intend to keep the notes rather than sell them.

Mr Short said: "I don't know whether I'm disappointed that they haven't wanted to sell them because I wanted them to have some money for Christmas, but the fact that they are so happy to keep them, that's nice as well."

And he admitted he is also checking his change and said he was "terrified" of finding one.

He said: "When someone gives me a £5 note in my change now I always check. Wouldn't it be awful if it came back to me? People would say it was a fix."

Source: BBC
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

SandyGuyUK

Not sure where this picture has come from but my daughter saw it on Facebook.

It looks like the real deal....

Thoughts? Has someone snuck one out of the Bank of England?
Ian
UK

Bimat

That's really strange...The photo doesn't even look like photo shopped. But hard to believe that it can be taken out of the bank/press so easily. Has anyone sent a query to Bank of England yet?

By the way, these new £5 note with the animal fat was a hot selling item in recently concluded Mumbai coin exhibition. A dealer was selling it for something like ₹1000 (Approximately £12)! The animal fat thing is made it a collectible item among Hindu collectors. That perhaps doesn't harm their religious feelings. ;D

Aditya
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Bimat

Bank of England has confirmed that the new £5 banknotes will continue to contain animal fat and no change in composition is possible...

Aditya
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Bimat

Bank of England agrees public debate on tallow in new currency notes

Published on : 23 February, 2017
By Eastern Eye

THE Bank of England has said it will launch a full public consultation ahead of the proposed new £20 polymer banknotes following the controversy over the use of tallow in the new £5 notes.

In a letter last Wednesday (15), Victoria Cleland, the chief cashier and director of notes at the Bank of England, told Hindu faith leaders that the bank will "continue with the proposed launch of the new £10 polymer banknotes in September 2017, using the existing polymer substrate".

However, following concerns among some Hindus about the use of animal derived products in the new notes, the bank said it would launch a public consultation on the "contents of the polymer substrate to be used in any future reprints of both the £5 and £10 polymer banknotes, and the proposed new £20 polymer banknotes".

The polymer £5 notes were unveiled in September, with the Bank of England extolling the new banknotes for being waterproof and having enhanced security features.

But it came come under fire for using tallow, a product derived from animal fats, in the polymer pellets used to make the £5 notes.

Tallow is derived from animal fats (suet) and is also widely used in the manufacture of candles and soap.

Vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs and Jains were among those who protested against the use of tallow in the notes.

Representatives from the Hindu community met Cleland earlier this month and explained their concerns over the new notes.

They said some Hindu temples across the UK had banned the use of the new £5 note as donations and offering to deities inside the temple.

Following their meeting, Cleland said assured the group in her letter last week that the bank will work with suppliers to explore using alternative substrates to produce polymer notes.

Radha Mohan Das of Bhaktivedanta Manor said: "We are both shocked and saddened to receive news that the Bank of England have already printed £10 notes containing tallow.

"As a temple community our ethos is non-violence. As such we stopped accepting the new £5 notes which, in turn, impacted the donations we depend on. Now with news of the £10 note, we will have to review our stance on banning tallow notes. We find ourselves having to choose between compromising our core religious principles and spiritual values or suffering significant financial losses.

"We do welcome the bank's planned consultation and understand that the costs of correcting the oversight are deemed unacceptable. Currency must be acceptable to all, therefore there is no question, it must be free from animal products," he said.

Source
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Bimat

BoE consults on alternatives to using animal fat in bank notes

Financial Times reports that Bank of England is consulting on alternatives to using animal fat in the new polymer banknotes.

Aditya
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Alan71

What do Australia and New Zealand use in their polymer bank notes?  If they don't use animal fat, why couldn't the UK have done the same as them?

Bimat

Seems that Financial Times made that article visible only to subscribers... ::)

This article mentions that BoE is considering use of palm oil instead of animal fat,which again may invite protests from environmentalists.

Aditya
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Bimat

The new £5 note has a major grammar blunder...But have you spotted it?

Katie Morley
The Telegraph28 April 2017

Britain is living in a "post-punctuation world", academics have warned, with the Bank of England named as the latest major institution to ignore the correct use of the English language.

The Bank has been accused of "dumbing down" after choosing to remove punctuation from a quote by Sir Winston Churchill printed on its new £5 notes.

In its concept image for the new polymer £5 notes the Bank correctly included double quotation marks around the former prime minister's famous saying: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

However, it has emerged that it quietly dropped them from the final design, something it is understood has attracted complaints from keen-eyed members of the public.

The National Literacy Trust has backed their cause advising that the quote is grammatically incorrect in its current state appearing without a full stop or quotation marks.

It is likely to further fuel a national debate over whether proper use of grammar and punctuation is being devalued by society and follows a number of local councils sparking public outrage by banning apostrophes from road signs, after national guidelines warned punctuation could "confuse" emergency services.

Some reversed the decision after members of the public resorted to using marker pens to fill in apostrophes missing from signs.

Prof Alan Smithers, head of the centre for education and employment research at the University of Buckingham, said: "We are living in a post-punctuation world created by big institutions. Some people may dismiss omissions as pedantry, but they have lost sight of the fact that precision of expression reflects precision of thought."

Speaking about the £5 notes a spokeswoman for the Trust, which aims to improve literacy levels in the UK, said: "If you are referencing a quotation word-for-word, use double quotation marks at the start and end of the quoted section. Place full stops and commas inside the quotation marks for a complete quoted sentence.

The Bank had originally included double quotation marks in its concept image for the new polymer £5 notes but quietly dropped them from the final design.

Last night critics suggested the note's designers had sacrificed "correct" punctuation for the sake of creating an aesthetically pleasing design. A spokesman at the Bank declined to comment.

Source
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Figleaf

Is a banknote a literary document or a piece of graphic art? If neither, is correct grammar more or less important than pleasing graphics?

Given that the darkest idiots need to understand what the banknote is, is the quote vital, important, interesting or completely irrelevant for the darkest idiots?

Could this be a non-issue?

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

chrisild

So this is a "major grammar blunder" according to the Daily Telegraph? I wonder what they will write in cases of actual grammatical mistakes ... ::)  Now I would not mind learning why the quotation marks were dropped - see the original design here. But I agree, it's basically a non-issue.

Christian

FosseWay

Quotation marks are useful to separate quoted material from surrounding text. When there is no surrounding text, they are simply unnecessary. What makes a quotation a quotation is whether it is a direct rendition of what someone said or wrote. No amount of punctuation changes this.

Alan71

Yes, I saw this somewhere.  I was expecting something serious like a missing apostrophe or one in the wrong place (although that would be punctuation not grammar) but when I read what it actually was, I thought, "Is that it?"  A missing full stop that isn't needed and missing quotation marks that likewise aren't required in this instance.

chrisild

Interestingly, each side of the note shows a sentence that starts with "I". :) There is Elizabeth's "I promise to pay the bearer on demand" etc., and Churchill's "I have nothing to offer but" etc.  It does make sense to differentiate between the Queen putting a promise on "her" money, and any other quotes. Actually the Jane Austen £10 designs that I have seen so far also use quotation marks - no idea whether that will be changed too ...

Christian