British money is about to get really cool

[zridling]

Thanks to the trashed USDollar, it now costs more to mint the [US] money than it's worth! However, British coins are about to get really cool.

[mediaguycouk]

You missed the picture that explains the design (although it is in your link)



I think the design is excellent, but I still can't believe that 1p's metal is worth less than 1p, even if it is 2 cents.

[justice]

exception is the two pound coin because it is recently redesigned (less than 10 years).

[Renegade]

Most of the more mature economies would do well to get rid of the lesser coins. 1 cent, 5 cents, 1 pence, etc. This isn't anything new. It's been well known for 20 years.

But I must say, those are some VERY VERY SLICK and extremely cool new designs! I wish we had that here in South Korea.

Any Aussies here? You all have some very slick bills there! Something the rest of the world may do well to follow!

[allen]

They look almots sci-fi in origin -- especially the fifty pence piece. I immediately thought of Battlestar Galactica.

[Lashiec]

Most of the more mature economies would do well to get rid of the lesser coins. 1 cent, 5 cents, 1 pence, etc. This isn't anything new. It's been well known for 20 years.

-Renegade (April 09, 2008, 09:34 AM)

NO, we don't want to give businesses more reasons to round up the prices again, just like it happened when most of Europe started to use the Euro. Talking about Euros, they could learn a design lesson or two from the UK guys.

Ehtyar or Wordzilla, shows us one of those bills

[Ehtyar]

Any Aussies here? You all have some very slick bills there! Something the rest of the world may do well to follow!

-Renegade (April 09, 2008, 09:34 AM)

Indeed, our bills are extremely über, though having a two dollar coin smaller than the one dollar coin almost cancels it out 

Ehtyar.

[Anatolie]

Good cost I think, GBP much better than euro.

[Fred Nerd]

Another Aussie here,
We dropped the 1 and 2 cent coins a while back, and the canny amongst us collected the old coins, knowing that they only need a hole in them to become the cheapest copper washers out there.
As for our notes, I noticed that within the last few years, we have had 3 different $5 notes, but the differences were pretty small and not many saw it.

[Deozaan]

It's cool what they're doing, but I actually don't like the design that much.

[Carol Haynes]

Most of the more mature economies would do well to get rid of the lesser coins.

-Renegade (April 09, 2008, 09:34 AM)

The UK has already done that twice in the last 50 years.

When decimal currency was introduce in the 70s the smallest coin was the new halfpenny (worth around 1.2 old pennies) so the old half penny effectively disappeared. Also as a corollary all prices effectively went up because every value was rounded up. After decimalisation the new half panney was removed from circulation.

Of course I don't quite remember farthings but they were worth a lot in their day

Personally I don't want to see pennies go as it will just hike prices again for no good reason and us Brits are already ripped off. Yesterday I drove past a petrol station (gas station to N. Americans) and diesel is now £1.20 per litre (~ $2.36US, $2.40 CAD or 1.49 EUR).

Incidentally how long have US and Canadian dollars been on a par?

[cranioscopical]

Incidentally how long have US and Canadian dollars been on a par?

-Carol Haynes (April 15, 2008, 07:33 PM)

Since about September 2007.
It's been great for buying stuff from the U.S. but it's not helping our economy overall.
The previous occasion was about 30 years ago.

I have the feeling (perhaps wrongly) that when small-denomination coins are withdrawn no vendors round down.   

Spoiler

One could buy quite a bit with a farthing. 
And as for the silver three-penny piece WOW!
The old white fiver was something of which we only dreamt.

[Deozaan]

Personally I don't want to see pennies go as it will just hike prices again for no good reason and us Brits are already ripped off. Yesterday I drove past a petrol station (gas station to N. Americans) and diesel is now £1.20 per litre (~ $2.36US, $2.40 CAD or 1.49 EUR).

-Carol Haynes (April 15, 2008, 07:33 PM)

I know Brits usually suffer much more expensive prices, but that's actually a really good price for fuel compared to my area. Gasoline here is about $3.20 and diesel is above $4.

[cranioscopical]

diesel is now £1.20 per litre (~ $2.36US, $2.40 CAD or 1.49 EUR).

-Carol Haynes (April 15, 2008, 07:33 PM)

I know Brits usually suffer much more expensive prices, but that's actually a really good price for fuel compared to my area. Gasoline here is about $3.20 and diesel is above $4.

-Deozaan (April 15, 2008, 09:00 PM)

Deozaan,

I think you're talking gallons and Carol's talking litres.  It seems that Carol's cost for diesel is roughly $8.90USD per US gallon.

  or, depending on which side of the pond one is, perhaps that should be

[Deozaan]

Ah! Good point, cranioscopical. Amidst all the translating/converting taking place (petrol, pounds, litres, euros, etc.) I forgot to think of the difference between liters and gallons.

Silly Brits! Measuring things in a way that makes sense! 

[mwb1100]

Silly Brits! Measuring things in a way that makes sense! 

-Deozaan (April 15, 2008, 10:10 PM)

The metric system is the tool of the devil!  My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.  (Abe Simpson)

[Carol Haynes]

All the motor trade still measure in terms of how many horses it would take to prosuce that much power. Still I'd like to see them strap 400 horses together and see if they can get them running at over 200mph.

Units are damn silly things. As a teacher kids have been taught in the metric system in the UK exclusively for about 30 years and yet we still have 'keep the hundredweight' brigade kicking up a fuss because bananas at a market stall by law have to be labelled in kilos (they can still put imperial measures beside if they feel like it). Not so long ago a market trader in the UK went to prison rather than use kilos on his stall - which says something about the stupidity of the British mentality. Naturally he was treated as a hero by the press and public.

Life become even more complicated when you consider that just as Americans can't spell English their distance, weight and capacity measures are also based on the English system but use different quantitative sizes for these measures.

The classic confusion has to be NASA mixing up metres and feet in the shuttle - we're talking about scientists for gods sake who learned ISO units at their mothers breast and probably carry a photograph of the caesium clock used to establish many of these de facto standards in their wallet!

[cranioscopical]

My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

-mwb1100 (April 16, 2008, 12:29 AM)