Fake pound coins

Former Member

1 in 50 £1 coins in circulation are dodgy. What do you do if one or two is in your purse/wallet. How to spot fakes and what are the implications of all these fake pound coins in general use?

Former Member

Before making any comment, I'd be very interested to know where you got that 1 in 50 statistic from.

Former Member

It was all over the news last week.

http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&q=fake%20pound%20coins&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

JsT

I just get rid of them - never actively spend anytime looking at my coins to see if they are fake or not.

Former Member

Okay, thanks for clearing that up.

We come across a stupid number of these coins at the arcades. Last year, I worked in the cashdesk the whole time, and I soon worked out what was real and what wasn't. On Wednesdays, I had to bag up a ridiculous number of £1 coins which certainly kept me busy for a few hours. We usually used that opportunity to get rid of any fake coins which we'd come across during the past few days, unless they were really bad fakes - in that case, we'd just bin them.

It's very easy to tell a fake from a real one, unless it's an extremely good fake. Most of them, there are giveaways. One test is to take an obviously real £1 coin and the suspected fake one. Drop the coin onto a metal surface. The real one will sound different to the fake coin when it lands. Another method is to feel the coin with your fingers - with fakes, the Queen's head will either have far too much detail on it, for example.

Former Member

We found one in a Sainsbury's trolley the other day, the writing around the edge was different and it all looked bizarre.

We kept it for use in trolleys .

Former Member

stargalaxy wrote: »

Okay, thanks for clearing that up.

We come across a stupid number of these coins at the arcades. Last year, I worked in the cashdesk the whole time, and I soon worked out what was real and what wasn't. On Wednesdays, I had to bag up a ridiculous number of £1 coins which certainly kept me busy for a few hours. We usually used that opportunity to get rid of any fake coins which we'd come across during the past few days, unless they were really bad fakes - in that case, we'd just bin them.

It's very easy to tell a fake from a real one, unless it's an extremely good fake. Most of them, there are giveaways. One test is to take an obviously real £1 coin and the suspected fake one. Drop the coin onto a metal surface. The real one will sound different to the fake coin when it lands. Another method is to feel the coin with your fingers - with fakes, the Queen's head will either have far too much detail on it, for example.

Did you use gloves or did you perpetually smell of metal?

Former Member

The way i check for them is to get another pound coin and press it into the fake one and it will go in because the metal is harder in the real ones.

I agree with the whole putting them back into circulation thing though, if you are given one the bank simply takes it off you - i was stupid enough to do it with a fake 20 once :eek2: Fuck being a good citizen. I used to slip them into stacks of 20's and nobody was the wiser.

The implications are minimal i think, a pound coin is not 'worth' anything, we are the ones who put a value to it so who cares if its not at least 5% nickel? its still a pound coin!

The only time i think it would get really bad is if there were billions of fake pound coins that would falsely deflate the economy... but you would need literally billions of them to do it.....

Former Member

http://blog.alism.com/fake-one-pound-coins-part-one/

few examples!

who really cares/notices, its only a pound

notes are a diff matter tho, i got hit with a fake not so long ago when i was off my head! was ragin, too fucked to realise!

i have no problem tryin to shift it on!

Former Member

I'm surprised they are only recently getting attention, they have been around for years, they are largely made out of lead so they are heavier than the real ones.

Fake currency is perhaps (if it is good enough not to be detected) the closest you can get to a victimless crime, the inflationary pressure is going to be virtually non existant.

Former Member

When I did work experience at a music shop (in 4th year / year 10), I was asked to take £100 in notes and have them changed at their local post office. I came back with 5 bags of 20x£1. The guy who gave me the errand then counted the coins and saw in a remarkably short time that 20 of the coins were fake. That was in 1994 so it's definitely not a recent thing.