U.S. should do the same with it's 1 cent coin which cost the taxpayer 3 cents to manufacture. There are untold billions out there and nobody wants or uses them.
According to my kids, cash is dead ! They both say that they no longer use cash for anything.
Apparently, out of a population in the UK of approx. 56m, only around 3 million people used cash machines for banknote withdrawals during the past year. This was according to the BBC news a couple of weeks ago and was part of a report on access to cash and the siting of free to use cash machines.
According to my kids, cash is dead ! They both say that they no longer use cash for anything.
Apparently, out of a population in the UK of approx. 56m, only around 3 million people used cash machines for banknote withdrawals during the past year. This was according to the BBC news a couple of weeks ago and was part of a report on access to cash and the siting of free to use cash machines.
This may be due to people either getting cashback from supermarkets or using the Post Office to withdraw money. Where I live, a lot of cash machines are either out of use, have been removed or are temperamental.
I have never known prices to rise by only 1 or 2 pence a time. In the shop where I used to work at, prices would jump by 20, 30, 40p a time, for small grocery items. This was of course during the high inflation. But even still, sometimes prices will go up by these amounts. I can't see any logic in rising prices by a few pence a time, it would take too much effort to communicate down the supply chains and different levels of management.
I don't get why it's such a big fuss. We've had years where we haven't produced any coins of certain denominations before (excluding for proof sets of course), and all the ones issued from 1971 are still valid.
No pennies in 1972, 2018, 2019.
No two pennies in 1972 - 1974, 1982 - 1984, 2018 - 2020, & 2022.
And we have produced literal billions of each. IIRC, the 1971 2p is the most produced decimal coin ever at about 1,400,000,000 or so.
I know many are lost, scrapped, or otherwise destroyed each year but we've got an insane amount still in existence.
With reduced transactional circulation meaning reduced wear & tear, I reckon we could easily do without new ones for years & not feel short.
We went without producing any 10p coins from 1982 to 1991 without any real problems, and physical cash would've made up a huge proportion of transactions back then.
People soon complain when petrol goes up by a few pence. Imagine that rising by 10p each time. Happy to keep 1 & 2 pence coins even if it's just so that prices (whatever they are for) can still rise in moderation.
I don't get why it's such a big fuss. We've had years where we haven't produced any coins of certain denominations before (excluding for proof sets of course), and all the ones issued from 1971 are still valid.
No pennies in 1972, 2018, 2019.
No two pennies in 1972 - 1974, 1982 - 1984, 2018 - 2020, & 2022.
And we have produced literal billions of each. IIRC, the 1971 2p is the most produced decimal coin ever at about 1,400,000,000 or so.
I know many are lost, scrapped, or otherwise destroyed each year but we've got an insane amount still in existence.
With reduced transactional circulation meaning reduced wear & tear, I reckon we could easily do without new ones for years & not feel short.
We went without producing any 10p coins from 1982 to 1991 without any real problems, and physical cash would've made up a huge proportion of transactions back then.
Mountains out of molehills I say. 😛
Gosh, I sound like such an old curmudgeon. 😅
The reason why there were no 10p for so many years, was due to the introduction of the 20p - a coin double the value but using a fraction of the metal. So thus, it was cheaper to make solely these coins, rather than big bulky 10p. I am guessing that this is what inspired the shrinking of our 5p, 10p and 50p in the 90's.
People soon complain when petrol goes up by a few pence. Imagine that rising by 10p each time. Happy to keep 1 & 2 pence coins even if it's just so that prices (whatever they are for) can still rise in moderation.
I don't see that logic RE petrol. Petrol/diesel is priced in multiples of 0.1 pence (for example I see petrol stations saying 136.9 or 141.7 pence-per litre (just as example numbers). So does that mean we need to have coins of 0.1p for this? No.
When people pay for fuel, either they get a round amount IE £10 or £20 worth, or the total amount could be rounded to the nearest 10p, such as if 1 litre at 141.7p is bought, it could be rounded down to £1.40. If a litre at 136.9p is bought, it could be rounded up to £1.40. Already, petrol stations round it up to the nearest penny but no-one complains about losing a fraction of a penny. AND I guess most of the pennies minted are for these odd numbers such as if someone buys a litre at 136.9p, they'll pay £1.37. Same with irritating x.99 prices. We could save our nation a fortune and it won't cost the consumer much more. It would be so much more efficient and straightforward. In fact, it could even make cash use more appealing!
I think you were thinking that all prices have to be multiples of 10p, for example fuel going up from 130p to 140p rather than from 136.9 to 141.7 pence-per-litre. THAT would be bad to have such large jumps.
It's easy to say get rid of the 1,2 & 5p. when things seem to increase at 10p a time. The trouble with that is when the shops reduce the price of things it is only 1 or 2p . They would soon stop reducing items if it had to be 10p.
A sane way would be to do the rounding at the end of purchase (with all your bought things) not on a per item basis like they do in the Netherlands (at least it was the case in 2008 when I was there the last time).
It's easy to say get rid of the 1,2 & 5p. when things seem to increase at 10p a time. The trouble with that is when the shops reduce the price of things it is only 1 or 2p . They would soon stop reducing items if it had to be 10p.
Do shops reduce things by 1 or 2p a time? When shops reduce things to clear, they reduce by a percentage, such as 10% or 25%. Unless you are buying something that literally costs 10 or 20p, then nothing will be reduced by so little. I worked for 4 years in a shop. If prices came down due to renegotiations of suppliers or whatever, prices would go down 20-30p a time.
And often, if something was costing 99p (or 97p, as items that cost £1.95 at half-price would cost 97p), often people would tell us to keep the change or they would just put a pound coin on the counter and walk away. So to the vast majority of people, a decrease of a few pence would be negligible. Usually if the change was less than 10p they would tell us to keep it.
A sane way would be to do the rounding at the end of purchase (with all your bought things) not on a per item basis like they do in the Netherlands (at least it was the case in 2008 when I was there the last time).
A few months ago, I went to Canada. They also have the rounding. But it is only done due to their tax law IE tax is applied at the checkout rather than in the original price, at 13-15% resulting in wacky numbers for pricing.
But even with that aside, it is still pointless to have such specific prices. Everyone who sees a price ending in .99, in speech rounds it up. For example when discussing a menu in a take-away, if someone were to speak about a dish costing £4.99, they'd say “that one's £5”. That 1 penny makes no difference in pricing, especially when so many people refuse pennies in change or leave them on the counter.
Having penny-specific pricing only matters when one buys in very very large quantities such as if a large catering company buys thousands of a specific ingredient, a couple of pence here and there adds up. But for ordinary consumers, to have prices rounded up by 1 or 2p an item won't hurt. And items would also be rounded down, such as if something like a Lidl's item is for example 42p, it would become 40p.
The point I was trying to make is that a reduction of 1p is negligible and barely worth the time. It will cost more in administrative costs (label printings, supply-chain communications and whatnot) than the increased custom - which will be non-existant: who would swap shops to save 1p?
As I said in my previous reply, usually people say “keep the change” when there is 1 or 2 pence change to come back.
Unless someone is literally buying dozens of loaves, this represents no saving at all.
I think it would. As my reply above, when my former workplace (a small shop) renegotiated supply deals, prices came down by 20-30p sometimes even a pound a time! So I think that reductions would still happen. None of the reductions were by less than 20p a time. Also, if shops wanted to compete against one another, they would still reduce prices to stay competitive. Also, if a shop was only a couple of pence cheaper than the next one, it wouldn't be incentive enough for customers to swap over.
If I recall correctly, when the farthing was withdrawn in the late 50's - early 60's (it stopped being minted in ‘56, and fully withdrawn by ’61), it was equivalent to 5p in today's money.
I think it would. As my reply above, when my former workplace (a small shop) renegotiated supply deals, prices came down by 20-30p sometimes even a pound a time! So I think that reductions would still happen. None of the reductions were by less than 20p a time. Also, if shops wanted to compete against one another, they would still reduce prices to stay competitive. Also, if a shop was only a couple of pence cheaper than the next one, it wouldn't be incentive enough for customers to swap over.
If I recall correctly, when the farthing was withdrawn in the late 50's - early 60's (it stopped being minted in ‘56, and fully withdrawn by ’61), it was equivalent to 5p in today's money.
I just remembered something today:
When I went to Montenegro a couple of years ago, the smallest coin in use was 10 Eurocent - all prices were multiples of 10c! Whilst not quite 10p (was I believe 8.5p due to exchange rate) they managed just fine. Such as a can of soft drink would be 80c or a burger €3.50. I bought something in a supermarket which cost 89c, paid a Euro and was handed back only 10c in change. However, most things I bought were not in supermarkets; smaller shops didn't bother with prices ending in 9's so this issue was not seen anywhere else.
Hi to whoever is reading this. Did you know that TYPEWRITER (on a QWERTY keyboard) is the longest word you can type using only the letters on one row of the keyboard.
There was talk a few years ago that Sweden was about to stop issuing coins, but they still have 4 coins remaining in circulation. It may be a slow death until one of the major European countries takes the plunge, with many low value smaller coins going first. I suspect we will lose our copper coins some years before that happens, although there still appears to be some affinity in the UK for the penny.
There was talk a few years ago that Sweden was about to stop issuing coins, but they still have 4 coins remaining in circulation. It may be a slow death until one of the major European countries takes the plunge, with many low value smaller coins going first. I suspect we will lose our copper coins some years before that happens, although there still appears to be some affinity in the UK for the penny.
I think we would follow a similar path as what Belgium, Netherlands and Italy has done where they are discontinued being minted for circulation (Only made for sets) apply Swedish rounding to the nearest 5p but the penny and twopence would remain legal tender.
Hi to whoever is reading this. Did you know that TYPEWRITER (on a QWERTY keyboard) is the longest word you can type using only the letters on one row of the keyboard.
Just double checked the above link that was provided and it was last updated by the Royal Mint 7th October this year and no new circulating coins have been added thus far for this year for any of the denominations so anything found in circulation with this years date must be from the sets.
There was talk a few years ago that Sweden was about to stop issuing coins, but they still have 4 coins remaining in circulation. It may be a slow death until one of the major European countries takes the plunge, with many low value smaller coins going first. I suspect we will lose our copper coins some years before that happens, although there still appears to be some affinity in the UK for the penny.
I think with this, it's not comparable.
Sweden replaced all their coins with smaller coins in 2016, except the 10Kr as this coin was fairly “new” (being only introduced in 1990) and this move removed all the coins from the past century or so. It seems that Sweden minted enough coins to last for many years - a population of 10 Million with mintages of 100-200 Million per each denomination which was resized. Meaning 10-20 of each denomination per person. It seems the 2Kr coin was minted in 2019 (and only very recently mentioned with a 2020 mintage) but the 1 & 5Kr coins were only minted in 2016 and the 10Kr not minted since 2009 (maybe there are loads in existence). This shows that if enough coins are minted, you don'tneed to mint them every year. Also, 1Kr is like 7-8 pence in UK money, thus supporting my argument that 1,2 and even 5 pence coins can be withdrawn. Sweden doesn't have smaller coins as it was too expensive to justify keeping them in circulation.
Sweden is an unusual country, with the vast majority of the country using mostly digital payments as lax laws allowed cash to stop being accepted in most shops (however, in the north, apparently it is different among rural areas and among the Sami people having different attitudes). This is an extreme example compared with other countries.
Just double checked the above link that was provided and it was last updated by the Royal Mint 7th October this year and no new circulating coins have been added thus far for this year for any of the denominations so anything found in circulation with this years date must be from the sets.
I know many people break the sets to sell the higher-value coins. Someone found a 2023 5p with Privy Mark in circulation. Of course, I HAD to buy it. A circulated coin like that?! Perhaps the only one I'll ever see…
