On 18 Jun, 07:59, James Farrar wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:55:59 +0100, wrote:
"James Farrar" wrote in message
.. .

Todays 5p IMHO clashes with the lower threshold where coins are too
small to be convenient to handle.

They're almost impossible to pick up when dropped on a hard floor
without long fingernails. I've taken to hoarding them, along with
pennies and tuppences, and exchanging them at the bank when I have a
bagful.

Is there any estimate on how much in coins people are hoarding?

If you believe this American eco-nut, somewhere in the order of £400
million.

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/artic...ding-and-the-e...

"According to the research I was able to do, in Ireland, approximately
$60 million of coins are being hoarded. In the UK it's somewhere in
the region of three quarters of a billion dollars worth!"

Sounds reasonable. Right now I've got about £6 not counting the "in
use" ones.

A few years ago I had got into the habit of chucking all my brown
money into a box.

I didn't know what to do with it till Sainsburys provided a machine to
count it and give you a receipt that you could take to the till for
the equivalent in sensible denominations (minus an outrageous 7%).

Howl!

Years ago when the Canadian dollar was trading in the region of 70-75
US cents, the finance chair of our (apartment) strata corporation
began separating out Yankee quarters from the cash inserted in the
complex's laundry machines.

She'd amassed a considerable number of 25-cent pieces (replacing the
value of submitted Ammurican quarters with equivalent Canadian two-bit
pieces so the corporation's books balanced).

She knew I was about to visit Seattle, and asked if I'd cart the loot
across the line and Make A Profit by exchanging the US quarters for
Green Back paper.

Any bank I approached, refused to accept the large numbers of coins as
I wasn't/we weren't a customer.

I finally found one that accepted the metal, although at a "discount"
to handle the loose change... so I ended up basically with paper/bills
worth the same "face value" of the original mass of coins in Canadian
dollars anyway.

The problem was that I could barely pick up the money and had to put
it in a large rucksack to get it there. I got over £80 even with the
ripoff.

But it would require about 9 million people to do something similar to
add up to the three quarters of a (presumably American) billion
suggested. I am not one of them any more.