UK Commemoratives Declared Worthless. True?

49 cents for UK commemoratives? I'm assuming they go for more than that.

They're generally worth their price for the coin, and maybe a little bit more, depends on the coin. The Kew Gardens went suicidal at one point, over 100 pounds for the coin, and then dropped to like 20, simply because of the mint's ability to make people think they're super rare.

Look, I love good gutter journalism along with the best of them, but if the Mail said that a nearby star was going to be visible in the sky tomorrow from dawn, I would check with both a weatherman and an astronomer.

What The Royal Mint did was take away the implied floor value under commemorative coins - up until January you could always turn them in for 'face' value or use them in commerce. Now they are worth whatever their numismatic value is, or the value of the metal.

If you read the RM letter, it also refers only to the 20, 50 and 100 pound coins - these were sold in vast numbers and abused to gain credit card rewards and airline miles via churning schemes. But the older, smaller mintage coins probably still have numismatic value anyway...

I've said it in the other threads on this forum about them, and I'll say it again here. The Royal Mint has not removed their legal tender status - legally, the coins are still legal tender "for any amount" - in other words, their number is not restricted in trade in payment of debts. The Royal Mint does not have the power to declare coins no longer legal tender - only the government can do that, and so far the government has not yet done so.

What the Mint has done is to advise banks and businesses of something they should already have been aware of: that they have every right to refuse to accept these coins as deposits or in payment for trade. The banks would also be perfectly within their rights to ignore this advice and accept the coins anyway.