Put in general terms, I will select coins from my collection and try to establish whether they legal lender in the UK, and if not, try to give the reason why. There will be a good variety, as my British collection spans the years AD 322 to 2011.
The idea for this came from a member in €uroland, who commented that he didn’t realise that a certain circulation coin dating from 1821 was still legal tender.
My aim is to find out as much as possible about a coin and present you with the facts. I will try to find out when the coin was made legal tender, how long the type was in circulation, quality of metal specified, and similar information. At the end of each section, I should be able to answer the question: “Is this coin legal tender today and if not, why not?”.
In the UK, coin policy is by Act of Parliament (such as the great recoinage from 1816 and the change to decimal currency). Individual coins are authorised by Royal Proclamation which gives the specification for the coins and declares them legal tender, this being made public by an entry in the London Gazette. So far, I have been unable to establish how quantities to be struck for circulation are declared. Examples:-
Decimalisation and
2011 50p WWF 50-years. Some of the specifications include wording like “and the date of the year” which permits further production until there is another Royal Proclamation revoking the previous one. If the Proclamation is for a coin in (for example) platinum, it does not necessarily mean that this will be made available to the public, as there is always the possibility that it is just to cover the striking of maybe just one or two examples for presentation purposes; in cases like this, you will have to consult the
Royal Mint website.
Regarding the term “legal tender”, please just accept that I have to use this wording. If you are uncertain about the meaning in the UK, please start a separate topic about it. Likewise, this series is not about whether a shop would accept an “unusual” coin which is legal tender, to which my reply will always be the well-known quasi-legal phrase “ignorance is no excuse”. Also, this is not about the coins as collectors’ items; what the coin cost me will often bear no relation to its legal tender value today!
I will either pick a coin at random, or select one to follow logically the previous one covered. If you have any questions about the information that I give just ask, but patience may be needed as hunting for sometimes obsolete information is not easy. An occasional “I didn’t know that” shows that my time is not being wasted.
So, lots of variety, plenty of facts, let’s see how it goes.
Bill.