Way back when I thought my first visit to a country would be my last visit (because trips are expensive and I have so many places to go and yadda yadda yadda), I would try to spend every last cent, pence, franc or yen before I left for home. No sense in bringing currency back with me that I wouldn’t have any use for, ever again.
It’s only been within the last five years or so that I’ve started to keep whatever left over cash I had when going home. It turns out I will have a need again for euros, yen and, particularly, pounds. Having money when I step off the plane means I’m not searching for an ATM as the first thing I need to do.
So when packing for my trip to London, I brought my Ziploc bag-o-pounds with me.
I even bragged about it on Facebook:
On our way. I’ll finally be able to spend those GBP that have been sitting in my drawer since our last trip.
To which one of my Anglophile friends commented:
Unless they were pound coins
What????
This led to a conversation about how said friend had to go to the Bank of England to trade in his pound notes for new ones because the ones he had from a previous trip had been withdrawn from circulation. The pound coins he had were too old to exchange so they were just paperweights or nice souvenirs.
The Bank of England even has a website that explains how to exchange old banknotes.
There is no deadline to exchange old banknotes with the Bank of England.
Our counter can get very busy so we may issue you with a ticket to return at a later time on the same day. If you arrive after 12pm, you may not get served before we close at 3pm.
Our opening hours are Monday to Friday 9.30am until 3pm (we are closed on bank holidays).
Before you arrive, you may want to find out about our accessibility and safety measures.
This option is suitable for you if you:
- have very old banknotes that cannot be exchanged at the Post Office
- have a UK or overseas bank account
- have more than £300
- can present original photo ID and proof of address documents for your permanent residence (even if it is outside the UK)
- need the money back immediately (we cannot guarantee all customers will receive money back on the same day)
I crossed my fingers and hoped my money was not on the list, which is quite exhaustive, on the Bank of England’s website.
As it turns out, the 10 pound note I had with me was on the withdrawn list. It was last issued in 2016 and ceased to be legal tender on 1 March 2018.
I followed all the rules to reproduce images of currency, including not distorting the image of the Queen in any way.
The UK Royal Mint replaced the 1 pound coin with a new 12-sided coin on 28 March 2017. Both coins were in circulation for 6 months at the same time. The round £1 coin lost its legal tender status at midnight on 15 October 2017. The Royal Mint says that most banks in the UK will still allow you to deposit the old coins into your account, or they can be donated to charity.
Considering that bills and coins have been in circulation in the U.S. for decades, it seems strange to print a bill or mint a coin and then make it obsolete less than two years later.
So if you have any old currency in your house, better to check to make sure it hasn’t expired before your next trip or you might get a strange look at the store.
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