What is your countries most obscure money denomination?

[bhsup]

Not meaning to derail this thread, but this is kinda fascinating. Are both currencies pegged to the same standard?

Kinda makes me wonder what it would have been like in the USA if State currencies had made it to the modern era.

 

[Flying Pig]

They're both GBP, just different notes - exactly the same value. You could say that the Scottish pound is a seperate currency with 1:1 conversion to the English, Ulster and Welsh Pound, I guess.

 

[Quackers]

You'll actually see them relatively often if you work in a supermarket. Even the occasional £100. I think some people still get them in their pay-packet, for some silly reason.

Only in Scotland and NI
Maybe one will find it's way down here to me?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

They're both GBP, just different notes - exactly the same value. You could say that the Scottish pound is a seperate currency with 1:1 conversion to the English, Ulster and Welsh Pound, I guess.

So what's the point of having separate currencies? (This isnt meant to sound rude)

 

[say1988]

The only time I get my hands on $100 Canadian is when I make large deposits or withdrawals at the bank.



I thought US dollar bills higher than $100 don't circulate anymore.

No longer circulated, you can still find a rare Canadian $1000 bill and virtually nobody other than banks are going to accept them. I knew one person who went around with a stack of them on him at all times.

But, yeah, the circulated denomination is the 50 cent piece mentioned in the OP. A lot of people get one and think it is commemorative/collectable, despite being a regular circulated coin.

Yeah but mine get turned into loonies quickly. Or they're used as part of a higher amount transaction. Never on their own.

Pretty much everything costs more than a dollar, making toonies very useful for low value items (go to Timmies and a coffee will cost 1.XX).

Actually it does, because a police officer behind me in line at the grocery store told the cashier, who tried to refuse my $1 coin as payment, that she had to accept it because it's circulating US currency.

Cheques are not the same, because you have no way of knowing if it'll bounce or not. Dollars are obviously worth exactly what you think they are.

The guy either didn't know what he was talking about or BSing to get the line moving.
You can demand payment in whatever form you want (if you had a store you could accept payment only in French Francs or tree bark if you wanted to). The main exception is that, unless specified otherwise, all contracted payments are assumed to be in USD. As well you have restrictions for banks, government agencies, and stuff.

Since at Taco Bell your payment is part of the process of acceptance they can refuse to accept it. They just refuse to do business with you if you are paying with that currency. This is the same as when stores only accept a certain amount in coins or large denomination bills.
If you went to a restaurant, sat down and ate, then paid they would have to accept it because it is assumed in the contract that payment is in legal tender and acceptance occurs upon recieving your food. Of course if informed before recieving your food that you have to pay a certain way (making it a contract term), you would have to pay that way.

I made sure to save one of each Canadian coin during my last trip there, though I don't have any bills.

Even a 50 cent piece? You would probably have to go to a bank for that.

 

[emzie]

You can demand payment in whatever form you want (if you had a store you could accept payment only in French Francs or tree bark if you wanted to). The main exception is that, unless specified otherwise, all contracted payments are assumed to be in USD. As well you have restrictions for banks, government agencies, and stuff.

Since at Taco Bell your payment is part of the process of acceptance they can refuse to accept it. They just refuse to do business with you if you are paying with that currency. This is the same as when stores only accept a certain amount in coins or large denomination bills.
If you went to a restaurant, sat down and ate, then paid they would have to accept it because it is assumed in the contract that payment is in legal tender and acceptance occurs upon recieving your food. Of course if informed before recieving your food that you have to pay a certain way (making it a contract term), you would have to pay that way.

No. You may accept any method of payment, or any currency, or anything as payment, yes, but you may not refuse USD transactions. That's not the same as cash transactions, which one can refuse.

Put another way, a store could accept Pesos, but could not refuse USD and demand Pesos. A store can refuse cash, but not refuse dollars.

Even a 50 cent piece? You would probably have to go to a bank for that.

When I was driving up to James Bay, I wanted to set up a geocache on the 50th parallel north, and put some 50 cent pieces in them. I went to 4 banks and none had them on hand

 

[Hygro]

I got the image of some big criminal guy pulling out a couple thousand in $20 bills "oh no I dropped them!" and it happened to be a windy day

i lol'd.

 

[dosed150]

So what's the point of having separate currencies? (This isnt meant to sound rude)

i guess its just a historical thing having different banks, though the coins are the same its just notes that are different, theres quite a few banks that can issue notes, 1 in england, 3 in scotland, 4 in northern ireland

i didnt think wales had its own notes they just use bank of england notes dont they?

 

[Silurian]

There is also the Manx pound (Isle of Man), Jersey Pound and Guernsey pound, but you are unlikely to get them accepted (outside of a bank) on the mainland.

So there are 11 sets of currency that can be used in the UK.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

i lol'd.

My mom once went into an empty parking lot to turn around and found at least 5-10 $20 bills blowing around. She got them all and had no idea where they were from. Perhaps some people were doing some criminal thing and then dropped the money and then the police showed up just then.

 

[Kal'thzar]

No, it's only legal tender in Scotland, so they're within their rights to refuse it. (Although English money is legal tender in Scotland, because of the funny way our banking system is set up.) Some places will accept them anyway, they just make a bit of a fuss about checking to make sure its real.

Not quite. No notes are legal tender in Scotland (well BoE notes of value less than 3% are, but they discontinued the £1 note). Coins are legal tender to varying amounts depending on the coin (£1,£2 and £5 are legal to any amount). But Scots Law essentially says if the payment method is reasonable you have to accept it (i.e. you cannot be refused by paying with notes/card/cheque, so long as it is reasonable to pay the debt).

As to why the banks do it, I believe they manage to make some money off of the interest of the notes. They have to deposit a certain amount of monies with the BoE and then they can print notes.

 

[really]

Northern Bank in Northern Ireland (a subsidiary of Danske Bank) withdrew almost all the notes they had printed and replaced them with new ones in 2005 after an IRA bank raid.

The IRA stole £22,000,000 from a Northern Bank sorting office. As this included £10,000,000 of new notes and another £5,000,000 of their already used notes they decided to replace all the notes leaving the IRA with a lot of worthless paper.

Old

New

I always find it odd that two banks based in the Republic of Ireland can print bank notes in the UK when they can't do the same here in the republic.

 

[Leoreth]

There is also the Manx pound (Isle of Man), Jersey Pound and Guernsey pound, but you are unlikely to get them accepted (outside of a bank) on the mainland.

So there are 11 sets of currency that can be used in the UK.

I think I finally understand why the EU is so unpopular in the UK. They're still stuck with regional redundancies in their own country.

 

[Silurian]

I think I finally understand why the EU is so unpopular in the UK. They're still stuck with regional redundancies in their own country.

I doubt that the average anti EU English (or Welsh) person knows that there is more than one type of Scottish pound let alone know that there is such a thing as a Northern Irish pound.

I cannot comment on anti EU Scottish people.

And this could only be used against the Euro by any sane person.

 

[bhsup]

Wait. Individual BANKS actually print money in the UK? It isn't restricted to a government printing house or something?

 

[Traitorfish]

Yes and no. Certain banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland print money with the Bank of England's permission, and they have to lodge a certain amount of money in pounds sterling with the BoE to back them up. This means that strictly speaking they're promissory notes rather than actual money, which is why they're not legal tender, but that's mostly a technicality.

 

[dosed150]

There is also the Manx pound (Isle of Man), Jersey Pound and Guernsey pound, but you are unlikely to get them accepted (outside of a bank) on the mainland.

So there are 11 sets of currency that can be used in the UK.

you could probably get away with using falklands, gibraltor and st helena pounds as well, at least the coins anyway

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Back in D-Mark times the 10 D-Mark coin and the 5 D-Mark note were pretty rare.
Still wonder why there had not been a 20 Pfennig coin (1, 2, 5 Pfennig, 1, 2, 5 D-Mark, 10, 20, 50; 100, 200, 500 D-Mark, but only 10 and 50 Pfennig). Does "not existing" count as obscure ?

There were 1000 D-Mark notes, too. I even recall an anectode when my father explicitly asked for one; and then paid the groceries with it.

I still have one of those rare 5 D-Mark notes. When I got hold of it, I could never let go.