What can you do with an old pound coin? Here are 5 great ideas.

Miss Thrifty4 October 22, 2017

The old one pound coin went out of circulation on 15 October 2017. This has all happened rather suddenly, hasn’t it? It feels like the shiny new one pound coins only came out the other week. However if you have found an old one pound coin lurking in your money box or down the back of the sofa, STOP RIGHT THERE, BUSTER. There are still a number of ways in which you can spend an old one pound coin – and they are all listed below.

old one pound coin

Before you continue: do note that at the time of writing, certain shops and supermarkets will still accept your old one pound coin. I haven’t included this list in the bigger list below, because the amnesty for the old one pound coin is of an extremely limited duration. However here is what you need to know:

Tesco – accepting the old one pound coin until 23 October 2017.

Aldi – accepting the old one pound coin until 30 October 2017.

Iceland – accepting the old one pound coin until 31 October 2017.

Poundland – accepting the old one pound coin until 31 October 2017.

Small shops – it’s worth asking!

 

Here are five other ways to spend your old pound coins:

1. You can use your old pound coin in supermarket trolleys. 

Certain supermarkets have not upgraded their trolleys, so the round pound coins will still work. Earlier this month, Sainsburys and Tesco both admitted they hadn’t yet modified their trolleys to take the new pound coins, blaming ‘internal logistical problems.’

 

2. You can donate your old pound coin to the Poppy Appeal.

The Royal British Legion is accepting old one pound coins as donations to its 2017 Poppy Appeal, which runs until 12 November 2017.

Claire Rowcliffe, director of fundraising for the Royal British Legion, has said: “We’d be delighted to turn your out-of-date pounds into poppies, commemorating the fallen while enabling us to offer vital assistance to all members of the Armed Forces community, young and old.”

 

3. You can donate your old pound coin to Pudsey’s Round Pound Countdown.

Another charity that would be grateful for your old one pound coins in 2017 is Children in Need. It’s called Pudsey’s Round Pound Countdown.

You can no longer spend your old pounds, but we can still collect them and put them to work changing young lives here in the UK.

Millions of round pound coins are still in circulation. We’re challenging the nation to hunt for them in saving jars, piggy banks, coat pockets and down the back of sofas, then put them to good use by donating to BBC Children in Need!

We’re aiming to collect as many as we can before our big Appeal Day on 17th November.

More details here.

4. You can add your old pound coin to your bank, building society or Post Office savings.

It turns out that a lot of high street banks will still accept old one pound coins as deposits into bank accounts. The amount of time for which you’ll be able to do this, however, varies from bank to bank.

According to the Royal Mint, the following banks are still accepting old one pound coins:

  • RBS
  • NatWest
  • Ulster
  • HSBC
  • Barclays
  • Lloyds
  • Santander
  • Nationwide
  • Clydesdale
  • Yorkshire Bank
  • Halifax
  • Bank of Scotland

If you are self-employed: it is worth noting that this policy applies to business accounts as well as personal accounts, but you have to separate the old pound coins from the new ones when you are making a cash deposit.

Also – and unsurprisingly – this offer tends to be open to current customers only. If you are not a customer and you walk through the door waving a bag of old one pound coins and asking to change them up, you will likely be told to get lost.

Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Lloyds, Bank of Scotland and Halifax, has said that in addition to accepting old one pound coins as deposits, it will also change old one pound coins for new one pound coins. Again, this offer is available to their current customers only. No deadline for the expiry of this offer has yet been set.

The list above may not be exhaustive, so if your financial institution of choice isn’t featured, it is worth checking with your bank or building society to see what the deal is. I’d also like to point out that at a lot of the banks listed there, you can open a savings account with as little as £1. So what are you waiting for?

 

5. You can check to see if your old pound coin is worth any (well, more) money. 

If you are the owner of a rare one pound coin, you can flog it on eBay, sell it on another specialist site or sell it to a dealer – and make a tidy profit.

There is a terrific website called Change Checker, which focuses on the UK coin inventory and collectors’ market. The first thing you should do is take a look at the year engraved on your old one pound coin, and cross-reference it with this diagram:

how rare is my one pound coin

As you can see, the rarest one pound coin we have is the 2011 Edinburgh design. This was part of the series depicting the UK’s capital cities. The 2011 Edinburgh one pound is the only one coin with a mintage of less than a million. Change Checker compares it to the 1983 Royal Arms shield one pound coin: more than 443 million of those were minted. At the time of writing, 2011 Edinburgh pounds in excellent condition are selling on eBay for up to £95 each.

The next rarest one pound coins are the 2011 Cardiff pound coin and the 2010 London pound coin (selling on eBay for up to £68).

Coin Checker notes:

Another coin to look out for is The Royal Arms £1. Although this is a common design which is regularly ignored, make sure to look out for one with a 2008 date – that’s actually the fourth rarest £1 coin.

At the time of writing, 2008 Royal Arms pound coins in excellent condition are selling on eBay for up to £57 each.

If you have one of these coins and it isn’t in mint or excellent condition, it could still sell on eBay for around £5 – which, let’s face it, is still a handsome profit after eBay fees are paid.

The next rarest one pound coins are the 2014 Thistle, 2013 Daffodil, 2013 Rose and 2014 Flax. The selling values for these seem to range from £1.50 to £15, with much depending on the condition of the coin.

 

Finally…

If you have read all the way to the bottom and you haven’t found an old pound coin yet, your time is likely to come. Earlier this year, the government estimated there were more than 433 million old pound coins in circulation. Chances are that squirrelled away somewhere, you have one, or two, or three, or four…

I’d gently suggest that if you have found an old one pound coin, the best time to spend it, save it, donate it or cash it in is now. While deadlines have yet to be set for trolleys and bank amnesties, they aren’t going to be around forever. We don’t yet know if charities will be asking for old one pound coins in years to come. Coin values change over time – but they can go down as well as up. I don’t usually say this, but… spend spend spend!

old one pound coin

Image credits: William WarbyTaxRebate.org.uk (CC by 2.0.); Change Checker/288 Group Ltd. 

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4 Responses to “What can you do with an old pound coin? Here are 5 great ideas.

Really good post! I still have just 1 pound coin lying about but I’m using it for the supermarket trolley!

Little Miss Fire
LittleMissFire

December 22, 2017 at 1:01 pm

MaxOptions says:

I would keep some of the old pounds. Some of them could even increase in value. But of course, it would be a long term story.

January 8, 2018 at 9:27 pm

SJ says:

Brilliant tips and advice for using the old pound coin.
I just discovered this blog and I’m thoroughly enjoying reading your articles.

February 27, 2018 at 4:30 pm

Jenny Hughes says:

We had 130 old pound coins from our family money box. Unfortunately it’s become quite difficult to change them in 2018. Thought you might like to know, in most currency exchanges they take the old pounds and even old notes. If you’re already planning to go on holiday, might be worth taking some old money to the currency exchange.

March 26, 2018 at 6:19 pm

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