£19bn in old UK banknotes and coins not cashed in!
£18.9bn worth of paper banknotes and round pounds remain in circulation, with over 113 million of these being £5 notes! Despite it being nearly five years since the paper £5 note lost its legal tender status*, it seems people are holding on them.
In fact, you might just have one in your pocket/wallet/down the back of the sofa right now!
Whilst the paper £10 and £5 notes have been withdrawn from circulation, the £20 and £50 paper banknotes will hold their legal tender status until 30 September 2022.
According to the Bank of England, 775 million paper banknotes remain in circulation:
- Paper £5 notes in circulation: 113 million
- Paper £10 notes in circulation: 73 million
- Paper £20 notes in circulation: 360 million
- Paper £50 notes in circulation: 209 million
That’s a lot of banknotes!
*Whilst the paper £5 and £20 notes are no longer legal tender, they will always be exchanged by the Bank of England for their face value.
There are also supposedly £105m of old round pound coins in circulation, according to the Royal Mint.
After more than 30 years in the nation’s pockets, the familiar round £1 coin was replaced with an all new, 12-sided £1 coin in 2017, in a bid to crack down on counterfeiting.
It lost its legal tender status at midnight on 15 October 2017 and the Royal Mint asked the public to return their round pounds as they phased in the new 12-sided coin.
However, out of 1.6 billion round pounds to be returned, about 1.45 million were counterfeits!
The UK’s 12-sided £1 coin is described by the Royal Mint as the ‘most secure in the world’, with a string of anti-counterfeiting details. Find out more about the security details of this coin here!
Round pounds can still be deposited at high street banks – but can no longer be spent in shops.
Have you held on to your round pounds or paper notes? Let us know in the comments below!
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Judging by the millions of worldwide coins and notes offered for sale on the internet, conventional auctions and at car boot sales, I would suggest that much of our missing currency was taken out of the country by tourists or collectors. For example between 1983 and 2017 how many tourists might have taken a round pound home, never to be returned?
Probably all the round pounds are sitting in the sleeves of the change checker folders, will they ever be a valuable find for some future generation ????
I have lots of old coinage:- 1/4, 1/2, 1, 3 in silver and copper, 6d, 1/-, 2/-, 2/6, 10/-, and some a lot older. Just love coins, even foreign ones.
Can you still take old notes to the bank ?
Yes you can 🙂
Some you can still take to the High street bank, but most of the older ones need to be delivered to the Bank of England in London for exchange.
You could also look up any of the Coin and banknote groups to try and sell them on. There is always someone willing to pay a little more than face value for a good condition note.
GOOD EVENING I HAVE STILL HAVE ALL 26 OLD ROUND POUNDS .AND I HAVE GOT ALL THE OLD PAPER NOTES FROM THE
£1 £5 £10 £20 £50 …PLUS I HAVE AT LEAST GOT AT LEAST ANOTHER 15 OLD POUNDS ASWELL