I got my first one yesterday in change from the bar at the Ruislip Social Club but almost immediately squandered it on one of the extensive portfolio of low level gambling opportunities offered by Wealdstone FC.
Very slightly - perhaps a bigger contributor to the difficulties with supermarket trolleys and vending machines than even the fact they're not round anymore.
My gripe with the three I've had so far is that they all seem to have been badly minted - noticeably uneven edges and the lenticular "£/1" underneath the Queen's head doesn't seem to work at all.
Yeah, very slightly bigger as 3CR says, but not so obviously that you'd notice if you grab a few coins from your pocket. Definitely less impressive than the new fivers.
Still not got one (although mrs b got one in her change at Costa Coffee on Saturday).
I decided a wee while ago to save a couple of decent old pound coins, but then realised that most of the motifs are shitey royalist nonsense (assorted coats of arms and imperial standards) and most of the worthwhile designs - Darwin, abolition of slavery, bills of rights - are actually on £2 coins instead.
In the end I've kept a half-decent Forth Bridge pound coin and that's probably going to be my lot.
I've never seen a Brunel one (I'd have kept it) or a DNA double helix (ditto), but I've got the End of Slavery and Charles Dickens coins, and have had Tercentenary, King James Bible, Darwin, London Olympics and two of the three Shakespeare designs in my change over the years.
I now have a new pound coin, a mere 3 weeks after they became legal tender. Guessing they weren't rushed out en masse in the same way the new fivers were (I had one of those the day after it came out, and have scarcely seen a paper fiver since).
Much to my surprise, the pound coin's hologram actually works.
blameless wrote: Guessing they weren't rushed out en masse in the same way the new fivers were.
It's easier to get old notes out of circulation as the cotton ones only had an average lifespan of about 18 months.
I'd guess that if you counted that far back from the day the old fivers will no longer be legal tender, that'd be about the time the Bank of England would have started printing the polymer ones.
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