Legal Tender and Best Currency for Cash?

Keep them for 100 years and then sell on ebay? Buy gold?

Vadim

The shop doesn't have to sell you the goods even if you do offer legal tender.

Robert

Yep,

Some date decided by the BoE. They withdrew these notes months ago. (Oh it's 2 years: 31 July 2003)

Normal banks, for some months after the withdrawn date. THe BoE will accept them forever

Only if you insist on being able to spend them in shops.

tim

In message , snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com writes

Which would have got you nowhere.

Yes. It isnt legal tender anymore.

The Bank of England make announcements.

Once they cease to be legal tender then they can quite legally refuse to accept the notes as cash but will usually send them to the Bank of England on your behalf for 'collection' which means you will get the dosh in a month or so's time.

So long as you dont want to be able to use the notes as legal tender it doesnt matter. You can just ask your clearing bank to send them to the Bank of England for collection.

I cant see any reason for doing this at all. The exchange risk obviates any benefit.

In message , Robert writes

Bit of a problem in Scotland then where no notes are legal tender, even those currently in circulation

A *month*? So much for the promise to pay the bearer *on demand*!

A few weeks ago I was tidying a desk drawer and came across an old Sparkassenbuch (savings account pass book) denominated in DM, which had been languishing there for nigh on 30 years. Not only that, but even a few tens of DM cash in notes. I sent these off with a letter asking that the pass book be updated with respect to interest, and converted to Euros, and the account then be closed and the balance remitted to a certain current account, and while they were at it, could they please deal with the notes similarly. They duly returned the cancelled pass book when they wrote confirming they had complied with my instructions, but regretted that the notes could not be dealt with in the same transaction as they had to be sent to the Bundesbank, and that this would take an extra *day*.

Here in Wales one occasionally finds that a Scottish banknote has slipped in to the change after a good night out. Never had any problem passing it back over the counter again. My understanding is that legally a Scottish banknote must be accepted in payment of a debt, but the other party is not obliged to give back any change that may be owing.. In practise it is just treated here as common currency. I did have a problem with an old Bank of England five pound note that was refused by a retailer last week. It was given to me by the local post office who must have known it was duff currency. I exchanged it at a bank. Somehow I can't see the local council refusing any old notes in payment of council tax.

Ellis

In message , Ellis writes

this is not true

Your understanding is incorrect.

I stand corrected. Just done another google and found, quote: Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes, and Jersey, Guernsey, Manx and Gibraltar coinage and banknotes are not legal tender in England and Wales. However, they are not illegal under English law and creditors and traders may accept them if they so choose.

I should have said, Scottish banknotes "may" be accepted, and not "must". As I said previously, Scottish banknotes do seem to be accepted as common currency around here. I expect this is because this is a holiday resort popular with people from Scotland and it is simply good business.

Ellis

"Ellis" wrote

Correct. Just like Monopoly money *may* be accepted (if the recipient so wishes) - but not *must* !!

The US currency was redesigned a few years ago. Old notes remain legal tender, but you will find difficult to spend them and you'd better have very solid proof of the source of your money if you show up with a thick wad of $100 bills.

Not everyone here will accept them but I don't think I've ever had to go to the bank to get rid of a Scottish or Northern Irish banknote--usually some merchant will accept them before I have cause to go to the bank.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

Thats very jolly, if I send off my 5 gigamark note do you think they would convert it?!

But not completely incorrect.

If you were to refuse a scottish bank note in settlement of the debt, and then take legal action, the Sheriff is likely to say you are an idiot for not taking the scottish bank note.

That would probably depend on whether the transaction was in Scotland or not.

During some forty years of globetrotting I'd amassed a cash box full of defunct coins from every country imaginable. I'd always been loath to throw them away. With Spanish coins there were times when they seemed to be changing their coinage every year so that I'd arrive in Spain after a year's absence to discover that the coins I'd taken from the cash box were of no use.

Then I heard a British Airways steward announce on a flight they were accepting coins for some sort of save the children appeal, so on my next flight I took this huge bag of coins with me minus those with holes in them because they made useful washers. It caused some temporary consternation with hand baggage security because the one kilo bag would've made an effective cosh. Come the in-flight appeal and the collection bag being passed around and I was delighted to donate my kilo of coins.

Some poor sods must've had the job of sorting them out. God knows what they made of the Hong Kong coins that looked like gear wheels, or the huge 1960s Spanish 100 peseta coins almost as big as DVDs. They dated from the days when the peseta was divided into 100 centimos --- there were quite few 10 centimo pieces among those coins, too -- aluminium sequins.

German Efficiency......

I am not sure it is as clear cut as that. A retailer can refuse (or agree) to sell anything to anyone (providing there is no discrimination on the grounds of race or etc) no matter what form of currency (or goods) are offered in exchange. The concept of "legal tender" only seems to become an issue when a debtor offers to make payment to a creditor. For example, a diner paying a bill after a restaurant meal. Scottish case law (apparently) has established that an offer to pay a debt in any form of sterling, or even foreign currency, cannot unreasonably be refused merely on the technicality of settlement not being offered in legal tender

In England and Wales, I concede that the legal situation may be very different. A Scottish banknote is not legal tender and a creditor may (or may not) accept them in respect of a debt. Whether declining to accept is a sensible course of action to take is another matter. If I were taking a taxi home late one Saturday night I know I would much rather have a wallet filled with Scottish banknotes to offer the driver than one filled with Monopoly money.

Ellis