2,500 British 10p Coins - Noodling Results

Given the number of Channel Islands / Manx coins my parents used to bring me that they'd found in change from holidaying in Britain, I'm surprised at the low count from those islands.

I think also that people tend to notice and save the unusual coins they find in change. If SAP's parents had brought back every coin they had handled during their trip, he might have got a different impression?

I don't know, but when I go to my local amusement arcade I see thousands of 10p coins in pusher machines and often don't spot a single one. And the alphabet coins even have the advantage of being identifiable by both the obverse and the reverse...

I think those alphabet coins were a joke from woe to go, they did not issue enough of them. I can understand if they issued too many of them (Say like 10 million of each) but the amount they did issue was way too low and they did not stop all the dealers and the scammers like Changechecker and Westminster from buying up huge stocks of them to sell at mark ups.

I mean take the fact they issue 1 million of each date, how many were actually put into direct circulation, once the RM takes out the coins need for sets and separate carded ones, silver proofs, proofs and all the other gee gaw.

The example here of our 2015 50 cent Anzac coin, 1 million minted (Usual 50 cent mintage is at least 10 million coins a year) at least 500k went into rolls sold at Post Offices and bought up by Trade Me and ebay speculators who sold them at 5 - 6x Face mark ups, 150k to War personnel and soldiers, fair enough and at least 250k more went into sets and "disappered" probably sold to hoarders and speculators for a mark up.

That left 100k coins put into circulation and I never saw one in change, most shops and banks had no idea what they were and the apper was full of stories of shops refusing them as they thought they were illegal or foreign (Then again most dairies, cafes and retail shops are run by migrant Indians and Chinese who have a limited understanding of our coinage anyway).

Would this be the same thing in the UK with the alphabet coins - 90% disappear to speculators and promotional stuff and just a handful hit circulation?

With coin pushers, I remember they existed here until about 1988 and only had 2 cent coins in them, many were shut down as it turned out most were rigged and only a few of the coins you got, the rest were projected by prisms and disappeared down chutes that were unseen.

In 1987/88 there was a crack down on "Carnies" who operated them and crooked sideshows at fairs and A&P shows, coin pushers, clown mouth things, dartboards and ring toss games were all rigged. I can remember in 1988 at a fair, one ring toss game had a mouldering 1960s $100 note on a post and it had been there since the 60s.

Clown mouth things that had prizes for the totals of the ping pong balls you dropped in them. One total was a $100 note, the total you got was always the booby prize of a lolly - these cost $2 or more for 5 balls.

I can even remember coin pusher operators would change big coins for 2 cent coins and often underchanged you and gave you 1 cent coins. It was this lack of regualtion that saw it all change. Now we just have the electric money vacuums (Slots/pokies/fruities) and most are cashless (Notes only and paper ticket payouts).

A coin pusher? Had to google that one. Never seen nor heard of such a beast until now.
I suspect Australia has gone the same way in respect to profit makers/hoarders getting pre-circulation access coinage. It's a win only situation. They can purchase tens of thousands of dollars worth, make some money, and in worst case, take the rest back to the bank for face value so it's a deal that the hoarders cannot lose. As for the Mint's involvement, just look at the amount of bling coinage they pump out at OTT premiums and it's easy to see why they won't do anything about fellow profit makers. Frustrating but a fact of life.