What to do with illegal Coins.

In a couple of earlier articles about foreign coins, I mentioned how easily they were being circulated as legal tender but that although similar to Australind Tender and easily confused as such, they eventually do get noticed. The question then, is, “What do you do with them then?

This morning I was discussing my “Five Coin test”, with one of my customers and he remarked that he was surprised that I hadn’t passed them on already to some one else. That is to recirculate them. That is what most people would do. However by doing that you are simply passing the problem on to someone else.

On the other hand, if you withdraw them from circulation, you end up carrying the loss. There in a nutshell is one of life’s big questions. Bear the loss your self; or pass it on to some other poor sucker.

Now in this case it is only a matter of a few cents and not a great loss for anyone, you or the “poor sucker”, to bear, and thus, it is not really that hard to do the right thing, or in some people’s minds, no great crime either, to pass the loss on to someone else.

However what you do with the small things indicates what you would do with the big things, so tell me what would you do?

As it now stands most of the foreign coins that come by me are Kiwi coins and I know someone who is going to New Zealand soon, and they are happy to carry the cost of conversion and take the coins off me at face value. Both to take them out of circulation, and later to spend and recirculate in their right place.

The other strange coins are strange enough for me to want to keep, and so far, I am happy to bear the cost. What would you do? Walter