Fake pound coins...

[Small Car]

I have recieved two today. Bloody good fakes. Less so were the three or four I have had before. I knew they were fakes because a machine spat them out and then they looked odd on closer inspection. Right colour this time though. These were in Southport but normally it is cabbies in London who pass them to me. Am I a rare case getting these or do others not make a fuss !? I am pretty amazed how many seem to be in circulation. Are banks obliged to take them out of circulation ?

[Vixpy1]

I had one recently, was quite blatently fake

[stockhatcher]

just because a machine spits them out does not mean they are fakes.

more likely that the machine has no change, or that the coin is dirty. if you give the coin a bit of a rub it might work back in the machine.

[M001]

I've had quite a few of these recently. I have my suspicions that i seem to discover them soon after visiting the local cafe!

[mybrainhurts]

stockhatcher said:

just because a machine spits them out does not mean they are fakes.

True...

I've had loads of machines reject all kinds of coins.

[theironduke]

Small Car said:

Are banks obliged to take them out of circulation ?

They won't "swap" it for a real one but they will take it off you to be destroyed.

[Kays vRS]

I haven't had one for a while, but I've had a few before that have been very obvious; as soon as you picked them up you could tell they were fake.

[ALawson]

There was something in the press lately it was either 1:50 or 1:200 £1 coins is fake. The easy way to check is the pattern around the edge and the queens head and the image on the other side should both align.

They are not legal tender and a bank will probably take them of you and dispose.

[T89 Callan]

theironduke said:

Small Car said:

Are banks obliged to take them out of circulation ?

They won't "swap" it for a real one but they will take it off you to be destroyed.

And this is why so many are still in circulation, we checked our coffee/tea money jar at work and at least 50% were fakes (it's £1 per week so lots of pound coins) but we couldn't hand them all in as we wouldn't be able to afford drinks, so we just passed them on to whatever shop is used.

Why hand them in if we can spend them so easily?

[condor]

An easy way to spot a fake £1 coin is to see if it registers a black mark on a piece of white paper...use the side of the coin and pretend it's a pen

[jessica]

ALawson said:

There was something in the press lately it was either 1:50 or 1:200 £1 coins is fake. The easy way to check is the pattern around the edge and the queens head and the image on the other side should both align.

They are not legal tender and a bank will probably take them of you and dispose.

So anyone with sense will just try and pass it on..................
sorry but its true.

[thetapeworm]

I got one once but it turned out to be a "magic" coin like this one:

http://www.jbtv.co.uk/coin-tricks/miracle-coin-uni...

As you can see it's worth a fair bit more than £1... unfortunately my then other half spent it so it might still be out there somewhere.

[Caruso]

I'm surprised nobody's tried faking stamps yet... 41p FFS for 1st class!

[zac510]

Never 100% sure but I reckon I have had a few. Once i found myself with about 10 £1 coins in my pocket and at least one of them looked a bit too new and a bit too rough to be real.
I'm aware it's illegal if you know it's fake but I've never not been able to pass one a £1 coin at the next shop. Nobody pays much attention really. No wonder it's a common one to fake.

[Mojooo]

I had to take lost of coins and spend them at the supermarket quite often. I woudl use those amchiens i nthe supermarkets. often i put in 40 £1 coins and would usually get 3 or 4 back - on closer inspection those ones always looked dodgy.

so those coin machines seem to be quite good at spotting them...

[Teppic]

Mojooo said:

I had to take lost of coins and spend them at the supermarket quite often. I woudl use those amchiens i nthe supermarkets. often i put in 40 £1 coins and would usually get 3 or 4 back - on closer inspection those ones always looked dodgy.

so those coin machines seem to be quite good at spotting them...

Next time save them up and put them towards a new keyboard.

[Vixpy1]

Teppic said:

Mojooo said:

I had to take lost of coins and spend them at the supermarket quite often. I woudl use those amchiens i nthe supermarkets. often i put in 40 £1 coins and would usually get 3 or 4 back - on closer inspection those ones always looked dodgy.

so those coin machines seem to be quite good at spotting them...

Next time save them up and put them towards a new keyboard.

[SiH]

Wasn't it in the news some time ago about the Royal Mint making coins for other countries? Something along the lines that they'd used the £1 coin 'coin' with a different heads and tails image to be used in some other country. The value was much less than £1 and so these coins were turning up in machines where the image on the coin wasn't important. I'll
try and dig out a link to make sense of my incoherent ramblings!

[Frederick]

I always do the drop test when presented with an iffy chunk. Drop it from about a foot onto a hard surface, if it's a lead one it will make a "dunk" noise and not bounce very far, if it's a legit one it will make a "crack" noise, and probably bounce back about 1/3rd to 1/2 the distance.

You can also dig your fingernail into iffy ones, as well as write "FAKE" on a piece of paper

[Small Car]

Frederick - funny enough, that happened with one of the fakes yesterday. Got rejected from the machine, fell on the floor and fell dead. No bounce. Ah ha ! Thats why.