On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:48:14 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 14:35:13 on Wed, 18
Jun 2008, remarked:
Is it not possible to take the money to bank, particularly where one might
have an account, rather than to go through one of those counting machines?

Last time I did that they almost threw me out. But seeing as there
wasn't a queue they counted it and accepted it and told me not to do it
again. I think they normally require bulk change sorted, bagged and
weighed, which they can then quickly check by re-weighing.

Which is what I do. Because I'm nice like that :-)

They want 100 pennies, 50 tuppences or 100 five pence pieces in a bag.
Not sure above that.

You can get the bags from any high street bank and I've never had a
problem with using the "wrong" bank's bag...

wrote:

Is it not possible to take the money to bank, particularly where one might
have an account, rather than to go through one of those counting machines?

Banks vary quite a bit on this. When I first got a current account in 1992
one of the considerations was the ability to pay in loose coins. Even then
some banks wouldn't take them out of hours. Now even my bank is switching
its payin machines from "deposit an envelope" to "feed in the notes and
cheques" with no cash option.

What the heck are people meant to do with their loose change? Debit cards
haven't totally taken over the universe yet.

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:58:08 -0700 (PDT), MIG
wrote:

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%).

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.

£400 million, say 50 million people old enough to have coins (I have
no idea of the population age distribution but 40 million seems too
low and 60 million too high) makes for an average of £8 per person.

It could be a total figure for coins held by people (rather than
shops/banks) including "in use" coins, I suppose.

"James Farrar" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:48:14 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 14:35:13 on Wed, 18
Jun 2008, remarked:
Is it not possible to take the money to bank, particularly where one
might
have an account, rather than to go through one of those counting
machines?

Last time I did that they almost threw me out. But seeing as there
wasn't a queue they counted it and accepted it and told me not to do it
again. I think they normally require bulk change sorted, bagged and
weighed, which they can then quickly check by re-weighing.

Which is what I do. Because I'm nice like that :-)

They want 100 pennies, 50 tuppences or 100 five pence pieces in a bag.
Not sure above that.

You can get the bags from any high street bank and I've never had a
problem with using the "wrong" bank's bag...
Banks and post offices weigh the money (which must be in the prescribed
amount for the bag, £1 for 'copper', £5 for 'silver' and £ 20 for £1/£2
coins), and only count them if there is a discrepancy between the actual
weight and the norm. Bags seem to be in a 'pool', and I've never had
problems with the wrong sort of bag in all the years I've done it. In the
days of telephone stamps, the change used to serve to buy these, taking some
of the sting out of paying the quarterly bill.
Brian

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

wrote:

Is it not possible to take the money to bank, particularly where one
might have an account, rather than to go through one of those counting
machines?

Banks vary quite a bit on this. When I first got a current account in
1992 one of the considerations was the ability to pay in loose coins.
Even then some banks wouldn't take them out of hours. Now even my bank
is switching its payin machines from "deposit an envelope" to "feed in
the notes and cheques" with no cash option.

What the heck are people meant to do with their loose change?

Buy sweets.

I used to accumulate coppers, and then have to deal with paying them in.
Then i realised i could just accumulate them in my pocket up to the sum of
10p, then use them to replace a 10p coin in my next transaction. These
days, i rarely own more than a few coppers.

tom

--
forget everything from school - you are programmer

"BH Williams" wrote

You can get the bags from any high street bank and I've never had a
problem with using the "wrong" bank's bag...
Banks and post offices weigh the money (which must be in the prescribed
amount for the bag, £1 for 'copper', £5 for 'silver' and £ 20 for £1/£2
coins), and only count them if there is a discrepancy between the actual
weight and the norm. Bags seem to be in a 'pool', and I've never had
problems with the wrong sort of bag in all the years I've done it.

£10 for 20p or 50p coins. If you are paying coins in, and haven't got a full
bag, they can still weigh what you've got, and only seem to resort to
counting if there aren't very many coins. They do, though, like you to
separate different denominations.

Peter

"James Farrar" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:48:14 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 14:35:13 on Wed, 18
Jun 2008, remarked:
Is it not possible to take the money to bank, particularly where one
might
have an account, rather than to go through one of those counting
machines?

Last time I did that they almost threw me out. But seeing as there
wasn't a queue they counted it and accepted it and told me not to do it
again. I think they normally require bulk change sorted, bagged and
weighed, which they can then quickly check by re-weighing.

Which is what I do. Because I'm nice like that :-)

They want 100 pennies, 50 tuppences or 100 five pence pieces in a bag.
Not sure above that.

You can get the bags from any high street bank and I've never had a
problem with using the "wrong" bank's bag...

I would imagine that this is what banks expect you to do.

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Is it not possible to take the money to bank, particularly where one
might have an account, rather than to go through one of those counting
machines?

Banks vary quite a bit on this. When I first got a current account in 1992
one of the considerations was the ability to pay in loose coins. Even then
some banks wouldn't take them out of hours. Now even my bank is switching
its payin machines from "deposit an envelope" to "feed in the notes and
cheques" with no cash option.

Beats having to stand in queue.

What the heck are people meant to do with their loose change? Debit cards
haven't totally taken over the universe yet.

Spend it or save it, I guess.

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:57:00 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

Banks vary quite a bit on this. When I first got a current account in 1992
one of the considerations was the ability to pay in loose coins. Even then
some banks wouldn't take them out of hours. Now even my bank is switching
its payin machines from "deposit an envelope" to "feed in the notes and
cheques" with no cash option.

Go to the counter?

What the heck are people meant to do with their loose change? Debit cards
haven't totally taken over the universe yet.

With a bit of effort, it's easy to minimise the amount of it you
produce by taking the time (it doesn't take that long!) to pay with
exact change when you have it. This wasn't my habit before, but when
I spent a year living in Germany I found most shop assistants would
insist on it if at all possible, so as I was in the habit I stuck with
it. I do have a small change jar (1p and 2p mainly) but it only ends
up with a few in a week.

On another note, though, I would like to see the abolition of the 1p
and 2p coins as the Dutch have done with the 1 and 2 euro-cent coins.
There is hardly a need for them these days.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

In message , Neil Williams
writes
On another note, though, I would like to see the abolition of the 1p
and 2p coins as the Dutch have done with the 1 and 2 euro-cent coins.
There is hardly a need for them these days.

Are they allowed to do that when they are valid elsewhere in the EU?
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)