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At some point in the future it appears that the UK will start to use plastic, or rather polymer, banknotes instead of the paper ones that we currently use.
They will be introduced in 2016 with the new £5 with Winston Churchill and will be unleashed across the country. They will be changing size again to make it smaller and fit alongside note sizes in other countries.
Has anyone here used these type of notes and are they any good?
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We've had them in Canada for years, started with the large denominations, now we're down to the five and the ten, our smallest bills. I like them fine, but I guess some people grumble about them, since hey, some people grumble about everything.
We're going for the smaller denominations and working upwards. Then again we only have 4 different banknotes to replace.
Damn USA cannot even get rid of the worthless and cost more to make penny and nickle. We are amazingly backwards on money. Considering a dime won't but what a penny did 100 years ago you would think we would start eliminating worthless coins, instead we wasted money to change the stamping dies to make our coins.
Our paper money has been slightly upgraded but is still over-sized and silly compared to most of the world. The steadily increasing size of bills from the lowest denomination to the highest most countries have should have been done years ago. I don't really care about color. We can stay boring as it doesn't really affect much. I understand the polymer bills are suppose to last longer and be even more water proof. This seems like a good thing.
I'd have no objection to polymer bills here in the U.S., although I like the feel of the paper currency we now have. (I'd also take Andrew Jackson off the $20 and put Theodore Roosevelt on it, and swap Harry Truman for U.S. Grant on the $50 bill, but perhaps that's a topic for another thread).
I really agree with removing Jackson, but why Truman over Grant? Why not Ike so the "Victorious Generals" are still represented well? Of course I would love to see TR on a bill and he well deserves it.Quote:
Originally posted by Elendil's Heir
The UK has had at least one plastic note already, a £5 note issued by a Northern Irish bank sometime in the last 10 years. It's odd because it is printed portrait not landscape. Let me see if I can find it.
http://www.banknotes.com/IEN203.JPG
What Exit?, U.S. currency honors statesmen, not generals. Despite his Civil War victory (won at arguably too great a cost), Grant did little in the White House worthy of being on a bill. By contrast, Truman decisively ended World War II, saved Western Europe including West Berlin, contained the Soviet Union, defended South Korea, recognized the infant State of Israel, and desegregated the U.S. military. Plus he was a more interesting guy than Grant, IMHO!
An Gadai, why would an Irish bill show the American space shuttle instead of some European space telescope or the like?
Good question. I think it was generically showing space imagery/innovation maybe. They also stuck George Best on a fiver. NI has several banks that can issue notes so it is slightly more idiosyncratic folding money than you get in England.Quote:
Originally posted by Elendil's Heir
http://www.moneychoice.org/wp-conten...rn-Ireland.jpg
We have them in Oz. You won't notice the difference after a while, they are much the same as paper. They can come in bright colours, too, so they are easy to tell apart, unlike some countries notes we could mention. They do have a memory, though, so once they are bent into a shape they remain like that, but it is not that big a problem.