Comments on "Milestones in the decimal coinage of Guernsey"

[<k>]

Nice one, Mal. 

Below you can see some of the main Sark shops. These are the shabby prefabs that I was complaining about. Such things were also built in England immediately after World War 2, to ease the housing shortage. Some of them lasted into the mid 1970s (I'm talking from memory here) before being demolished.

Maybe the islanders should have accepted the Barclay Brothers' development plans:

Sark store shuts as island heads towards 'economic oblivion'.

I'm sure a lot more American tourists would love to visit, if there were more facilities, but the islanders are very conservative, and ultimately it must be their choice.

[Alan71]

No, I meant non-UK coinage, on the basis that money from Guernsey and Jersey circulates in profusion on both Guernsey and Jersey - as well as the UK money from British tourists.

According to Wikipedia:

In normal use in Alderney, Guernsey and Bank of England banknotes and coins circulate side by side year round, while in the summer tourist season, Jersey notes and coins are also common, as well as Scottish and occasionally even Manx or Northern Irish notes.

I still think you meant non-Guernsey, as that is the official currency there.  UK currency circulates as legal tender in all the Channel Islands, but isn't the official currency in any of them.

I'm guessing that after the summer season they round up all the Jersey coins and send them back. I imagine Jersey do this with Guernsey coins and Guernsey with Jersey ones, so that their own currency remains dominant in their own jurisdictions.  They'd be fighting a losing battle trying to do the same with UK currency as there's so much of it!

Sark's tourism depends on Guernsey.  Sark definitely does have its charms, and that's what people go for.  They don't want to see what can be found on Jersey or Guernsey.

Sark islanders very conservative?  The Barclay brothers own The Daily Telegraph, you can't get more conservative than that!  And why shouldn't they be?  They have a way of life they want to protect. 

[<k>]

I still think you meant non-Guernsey, as that is the official currency there.  UK currency circulates as legal tender in all the Channel Islands, but isn't the official currency in any of them.

I certainly know what I meant.    I have read that only UK currency is official currency on Alderney, because Alderney is an autonomous dependency and has the right to decide which currencies are official there. Now, I may be wrong there. So, I wondered  whether Guernsey and Jersey coinage also circulated there. When I said non-UK coinage, I meant Channel Islands coinage - given my understanding, which may be wrong, that the official currency on Alderney is GBP, meaning UK notes and coins.

[<k>]

To elaborate on my point above, here is an extract from Wikipedia:

Schedule 2 of the Government of Alderney Law provides that the States of Alderney may, by Ordinance, prescribe "the legal currency and denominations of the legal currency, so however that that currency, and those denominations shall be the same in Alderney as in the United Kingdom; and prescribing those notes and coins the tender of which is a legal tender of the payment of money".

Note the words: "that currency, and those denominations shall be the same in Alderney as in the United Kingdom".

See: Alderney pound.



I first came upon these ideas during a conversation with chrisild:

The Sterling Area.

The documents referenced talk about Guernsey "consulting" Alderney and Sark. This is because those two dependencies are autonomous, therefore Guernsey does not issue diktats to them.

In theory, you could imagine a situation where Guernsey used the pound, Alderney used the euro, and Sark used the US dollar. That would be highly unlikely in reality, of course. In practical terms, the three would all want to use the same currency / currencies. Guernsey was just keen to consult its dependencies about their views.

Also, even though the Channel Islands are semi-autonomous, the UK could bring its influence to bear if they adopted a currency of which the UK disapproved. If Alderney announced it was going to use the Chinese yuan, I am sure the UK would find a way to stop it.  Such an idea exists only in the realms of fantasy, however. Then again, the idea of Brexit used to exist only in the realms of fantasy. 



Beyond all this, do please remember that the Guernsey pound is in reality a separate currency from the pound sterling. In other topics I have previously written that Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man were in currency union with the UK. That was wrong, however.  The crown dependencies like to keep their financial affairs opaque, but in 2014, during the debate about which currency an independent Scotland might use, the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, pointed out that the Channel Isles and the Isle of of Man ran currency boards.

The paper below (in PDF form) reaches the tentative conclusion (due to the lack of transparency of these systems) that the monetary systems of the crown dependencies are "currency-board-like" - even if they are not orthodox currency boards. The paper is rather technical in parts, so you may wish to skip to the "Conclusion" on page 39.

The currency systems of the United Kingdom periphery.

[eurocoin]

Legal tender by law on the islands:

Alderney: Coins from Alderney, Guernsey, United Kingdom
Guernsey: Coins from Guernsey, United Kingdom
Jersey: Coins from Jersey, United Kingdom

[<k>]

I assume you contacted the authorities for this information?

[eurocoin]

I assume you contacted the authorities for this information?

The information is from the coinage/currency acts from these islands.
I did contact the authorities but they didn't provide me this information.

[<k>]

Thank you, eurocoin. So now we know the official situation.

"Legal tender" has quite a narrow definition in law, of course. What is also important is which currencies or coinages are also accepted, on a regular basis, as payment, and we know that Jersey coins circulate and are accepted in Guernsey and its autonomous dependency of Alderney, while Guernsey coins are accepted in Jersey. Alderney only produces collector coins, of course, so I would be surprised if any of these circulate on Alderney - or anywhere else.

[Alan71]

There are no actual currency coins for Alderney though, only commemoratives (mostly Crown-sized coins).  The nearest they got was a few commemorative £1 and 50p coins struck to circulation specifications apart from the fact they were in silver not base metal.

[eurocoin]

Guernsey will withdraw its 1 pound coin from circulation at the same time as the UK will withdraw its 1 pound coin.
They will continue to use the Guernsey 1 pound note alongside the new UK 1 pound coin.  The treasury has no plans to introduce a new Guernsey 1 pound coin. Guernsey high street banks have not requested any new stocks of Guernsey 1 pound coins for more than 10 years.

[Alan71]

Guernsey did order £1 coins dated 2012.  Whether this was just to make up the numbers (as all eight denominations with that date were produced) is unclear.

I imagine Jersey will do the same as Guernsey.  The close proximity of the two islands (plus the smaller islands) would mean people would try and spend the round pounds in Guernsey if Jersey still used them.

Guernsey hasn't produced any circulation coin sets since 2003 (the last "proper" sets being 1997) so I suppose there's no harm in them not having their own new pound.  I think the £2 was only issued for the sake of it.