ForumGarden

The BBC is whingeing about the trivial worth of the penny.

The solution is not hard to find.

There are currently legal tender coins in the UK worth 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, £2 and £5.

On an unannounced day the government can declare all British coins to be worth 100 times their face value. Everyone would search the backs of sofas and empty their pockets, the old brass would go back into circulation as useful money.

The 1p coin would become legal tender for £1, we'd have coins for £1, £2, £5, £10, £20, £50, £100, £200 and £500, backed up by the existing notes whose value needn't change at all..

The smallest price difference in shops would be simplified. Nothing could cost less than £1, the next price up would be £2. Value would consist of larger or smaller contents. The country would benefit from a period of increased consumption as previously-skint shoppers used their new-found short-term spending power.

There is, as far as I can tell, no downside.

It's not long ago we had perfectly good coins in our pockets with a robin or a ship on the back. They need never have been ditched. Neither need we now ditch what replaced them if we simply adjust the value of the New Penny to reflect inflation and call it a Pound.

You have far too much time on your hands.

The BBC started it.

We've done redefining the currency before. We had 240 pennies in a pound, we redefined to 100 pennies to the pound, I've suggested redefining to 1 penny to the pound. If we have another bout of hyperinflation like the 70s and 80s we can switch eventually to 100 pounds to the penny and each time it just means we can keep the coinage.

If my memory serves, a bread cob during the Peasant's Revolt cost a farthing.

I suppose that after you all bail out on the EU, and abandon the global exchange, then you could value your money bits as you like.

But, I don't see the foreign exchange going along with it. If you declare a penny a pound, and the try to buy a pound worth of cheese from France with that penny, you could be in for a surprise.

I'd tried to avoid revaluing the pound. Just changing the meaning of the coins. There's a lot more UK Sterling than there is UK coinage, I don't see why it should have an effect on the exchange rate at all.

I'll have to start stocking up my pennies in readiness for the day I take them to the bank & cash them in for millions. £1 worth of pennies today could be exchanged for £100 tomorrow.