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Spending Manx money in the Channels Islands and vice versa

Started by <k>, March 02, 2021, 12:27:16 AM

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<k>

Unlike the eurozone, the so called sterling area is not a single currency area. The eurozone has a single central bank. In the sterling area, the UK has its own central bank, namely the Bank of England, while the three crown dependencies and the three overseas territories each have their own currency boards. One can spend UK banknotes and coins anywhere in the sterling area, but apart from Jersey and Guernsey, which are very close neighbours and accept each other's money, the others do not accept money from the other territories and dependencies.

However, I read a few years ago (I know longer remember where) that the Isle of Man will accept Channel Islands money and vice versa. In practice, given the small populations involved, I do not imagine it is likely to happen very often. Apart from that, would the Manx know that the Channel Islanders would accept their money and even think to take it and spend it in Jersey or Guernsey?

I wonder, then, does anybody know any Manx or Channel Islanders who might be able to answer this question? They would have had to have made a visit to the other island(s) and attempted to spend their own money there! Potentially that is a very small number!
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FosseWay

It depends on how you define "accept", of course.

Coins from the IoM, Channel Islands, Gibraltar and the Atlantic islands aren't legal tender in the UK, which I guess is as close as we can get to a legal definition of "accept". But as any of us who've ever received Dependency/Territory coins in change will know, they are clearly "accepted" to a certain degree, both by us ourselves in receiving change and by the shop we get change from.

Some of those instances of acceptance will be completely unknowing - people who don't check their change closely and just don't realise they've got a non-UK coin. Whether that counts as "acceptance" is open to debate; do you have to actively approve something to accept it? But the other instances of acceptance will be based mostly on a risk assessment: What is the risk that I can't give this coin in change or pay it into the bank, and thus be left out of pocket? I'd imagine most shopkeepers would see that risk as quite low, since they can easily slip the odd non-UK coin into a bag of UK coins and no-one is any the wiser.

I don't know the legal tender status of various DT/OTs' coins in other DTs/OTs, but the practical aspects of acceptance must be pretty similar there to the UK, I'd have thought.

<k>

For the purposes of this topic, I would say that 'accept' means 'generally accept', or be accepted, by everyone, unhesitatingly - in the same way that the Guernsey islanders unhesitatingly accept Jersey money and vice versa. Yes, accidents happen, of course, and parallel coins from 'the six' sometimes slip into circulation unnoticed in the UK. There are also borderline cases: when I lived in Newcastle, shops accepted Scottish banknotes unhesitatingly, but go a bit further south, and they were not accepted.

I once read of a resident of St. Helena who had made the sea journey to the Falklands and was annoyed to find that the Falklanders would not accept his St. Helena money.

As for the true legal tender status of Channel Islands money in the Isle of Man and vice versa, I do really do not know. Just because some notes and coins are generally accepted does not make them legal tender, of course, e.g. Scottish banknotes in Newcastle.

So, now back to my original question.  :)
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.