Coming in 2017...

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...er-crimebuster

Doesn't seem like a bad idea. By the time it's released, the pound will be worth about as much as a threepenny bit used to be.

Looks alright. The issue is if it can be minted it can be counterfeited too. I can't imagine it will take too long for some souls to come up with fakes.

You'll also get the complacency factor early on after they've worked it out. People will have been conditioned into thinking the coins are "secure" and therefore they'll get less scrutiny in general usage until someone starts noticing in the banks.

Can't say I have ever scrutinized a coin.

I don't like non-circular coins. I think the current pound is a beautiful piece of coinage - right weight, right shape, right thickness, even the right colour. Hard to believe it is already 30 years old.

Apparently the problem is the heavy counterfeiting (1 in 33 according to the article) so there is a need for upgraded security. It does seem an enormous hassle to change all the vending machine, parking machine and other coin devices in the country.

You would think we are not that far off from a cashless society now. The touch cards (£20 limit) are becoming more pervasive, another ten years, maybe we could do away with coins entirely.

Might have been a while since you worked behind a till, if ever. A few years back there was a spate of dodgy pound coins being passed around in the area where I lived and worked. At the time I was working for a supermarket. The company produced some literature on what to look for and asked us to check coins whenever possible. There were some really crap fakes picked up that normally you'd never even notice because, as you say, most people never look at a coin beyond the colour and outline/shape/size.

I have a stack of American dimes sitting round cos I just haven't noticed when they have been given in change instead of the Canadian one.

You can use them. You're aware of that right?

In my experience, they work more reliably in vending machines than Canadian coins do.

I think its quite spiffy.

where? US obviously, or is that a silly question?

30 years old??? Are you sure? Blimey!

That's made me feel old!

Actually that's frighteningly true. If you look at the half-time (jokey) ad on the Graun's MBM report of today's Man. U. match (congrats van Persie BTW), the price of a pack of 10 smokes was one and four back in about 1960. 5 threepenny bits and one penny.

That's less than 7p in today's money. Tesco's online site says today's discount price for a pack of 10 is £4.08. 5 threepenny bits = £4

Admittedly smokes may not be the best guide to inflation, given the continuous onslaught from the anti-tobacco fascists.

Easy to fake, just file the edges onto a 2 pound coin and your done.

I'm not even 30 yet and they still had a halfpenny in circulation when I was born.