which countries remove legal tender status from old currencies?
yawnmoth
bills, like the $500.00 Federal Reserve note, are still legal tender
even though they haven't been printed in decades. What about other
types of currency, like United States Notes or National Currency?
Are those still legal tender? And how common is this practice? The
UK and Japan remove legal tender status from obsolete banknotes. Are
they the odd ones out or is the United States the odd one out?
Also, according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Previous_issues>:
Nonetheless, all banknotes, regardless of when they were withdrawn
from circulation may be presented at the Bank of England where they
will be exchanged for current banknotes. Other banks may also decide
to exchange old banknotes, but they are not under an obligation to do
so.
How common is that? 1984 series Japanesen Yen banknotes were
suspended on April 2, 2007, according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Banknotes_of_the_Japanese_yen#1984>. If one found a forgotten stash
of 1984 banknotes could they still be swapped out for the 2000 series
banknotes or would you just be out of luck?
Peter
You are also omitting a number of possibilities.
Coins for example, are sometimes treated very differently that paper
money. A few years ago the Netherlands stated that there would be a
deadline to exchange base metal coins for Euros. They did not offer
to exchange the silver coins because even the intrinsic value of the
coins was more than the face value (not to mention the numismatic
value).
There are a number of cases in the world where a government is willing
to exchange old bills for new, even though the value of the old bills
is negligible. There are also cases where an exchange might be
possible in principle, but the old currency is simply worthless.
Germany seems to be, at least informally, a case where the old
currency exists in parallel with the new and is sometimes used.
You mentioned the UK, but it is also a currency where, in a sense,
there are multiple currencies in circulation and some equivocation
about which one is accepted (e.g., try spending Scottish banknotes in
England; sometimes it works fine and sometimes not).
yawnmoth
<http://www.dnb.nl/en/payments/exchanging-guilders/exchangeable-notes/
index.jsp> says January 1, 2032 for the final date of exchange. Are
the Netherlands the only country in the Eurozone doing exchanges like
this? And how, I wonder, would one even do such an exchange?
Per my earlier post, you can go to the Bank of England and exchange
old banknotes for new ones. Is that something regular people can do?
In the United States, you don't go to the Federal Reserve to go
exchange currency - you go to a private credit union or bank, like
Wachovia or Bank of America.
note.boy
"yawnmoth" <terr...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1930d4f6-c1b6-4f3f...@r18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
Scottish banknotes never become obsolete, no matter how old they are they
are still worth their face value, except for the banks that went bust of
course mainly in the mid 1800's.
A Bank of Scotland note from 1695 could still be exchanged for a modern
note. Billy
note.boy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bank of England in London will give modern notes in exchange for old BoE
ones. Billy
Mike Dworetsky
I think your own bank can usually perform this service for you; you don't
actually have to travel over to Bank station and ring their doorbell, with a
wad of old notes in your pocket.
The main purposes of regularly changing the design of banknotes are to
thwart counterfeiters with ever more sophisticated security features, and to
make it harder for bank robbers to stash their cash for a few years and then
bring it out to spend without it being questioned. It also helps the
understanding of history to be able to vary the person honoured on the back
of the notes.
Then there is the occasional change of the Royal Portrait. The Queen is now
50+ on the notes, though in her mid-80s in real life.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)