New £5 note

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**Maddermax**

filbert wrote:
I saw plastic notes in New Zealand back in 1999 and they were fantastic. About time we introduced something similar. Only downside was, as commented earlier, it felt like you had a wallet full of Monopoly money. if they can introduce the polymer without compromising anti-counterfeit measures then this will be awesome. No more dog eared or sellotaped fivers!

You still get the occasional rip or crease, they're just a bit more resistant to it overall.

Polymer options can actually include more anti-counterfeit measures than paper, it's one of the reasons we brought them in actually. And the "Monopoly money" thing disappears very quickly once you get used to them, and then it's paper money that feels fake when you've completely changed over.

Edit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote

Wikipedia has a good bit about the anti-counterfeit options for polymer notes. Interestingly while I knew we introduced them very early, I didn't realise they were actually developed in Australia, by CSIRO. The things you learn hey?

**angelofvengeance**

Australia has always had a thing about counterfeit money. Whenever you go in there, you can pretty much guarantee there's a sniffer dog about. Sits next to you and points at your pocket or wherever you're keeping your currency.

**General Annoyance**

I think polymer is much better than paper because of the durability that has been mentioned; I still have a lot of my UAE Dirhams and Qatari Riyals, and holy hell most of them are taped together because previous holders have ripped them and stuck them back together - they're also very yellowed and worn, often obscuring their markings, and some people even put these weird tallies on them that I don't understand the meaning to. That's not as big a problem in the UK, but still I think this change will be much better for the durability of the currency.

Still, I need my 99p note please

G.A

**Avatar 720**

I don't mind not having 99p currency. Charities profit a little from not having it, because as soon as I receive scattered pennies in change, I feel obliged to stick them in one of the ubiquitous collection boxes you find on most counters. I honestly struggle to pocket 1p, 2p, 5p, or a combination of the three whilst there's a collection box staring me in the face.

**Steve steveson**

kronk wrote:
Will coke and candy machines accept them?

Also, will the polymer bills still roll up tightly for "nasal therapy"?

That was my first thought. I should have known I could trust you to ask the important questions.

Although I am reasonably sure I don't even need to see your name any more to spot a Kronk post.

reds8n wrote:

Smallest note we have is £5, and that would be a lot of candy !

For you maybe. Some of us have a sugar habit to feed.

**Smacks**

Nevelon wrote:
The old ones are going to stop being legal tender? That seems odd. I don’t think any US currency ever stopped being valid. Might be worth more to collectors then its face value, but you could still slap it down on the counter to buy a burger.

Old notes getting "phased out" is quite normal here, I think all of the denominations have been withdrawn and reissued since the 1990s. In fact, after a significantly large robbery at the Northern Bank of Belfast, the bank chose to reissue all of their notes, which meant the stolen notes had to be promptly returned to the bank and exchanged for new ones, or else become worthless. It was called "the largest theft of waste paper in living history".

It's one of those curious little things that America and the UK do differently. I have to admit that I was just as confused when watching American TV shows (such as Prison Break), and the protagonists start talking about recovering a stash of money that had been buried for 40+ years... I was like "WTF! Wouldn't all the money be worthless by now?", but evidently, things work differently to what I'm used to, over there.

On the topic of the new note... £5 is becoming an increasingly invaluable amount of money nowadays, I see £5 notes less and less (can't even get them at many ATMs). I'm surprised they didn't opt to replace it with a coin.

**marv335**

grrrfranky wrote:
whembly wrote:
You don't ever want a cashless society.

Why not? It seems fairly inevitable. Paying using my contactless card is far more convenient than having to use chip and pin, let alone fumbling around in my pocket for change.

How would you pay strippers?

**Crazy_Carnifex**

Most important thing? You will be able to go the the waterslides, then go buy a beer then go back to the waterslides all without going back to a locker. Rinse and repeat until security asks you to leave.

**insaniak**

marv335 wrote:
grrrfranky wrote:
whembly wrote:
You don't ever want a cashless society.

Why not? It seems fairly inevitable. Paying using my contactless card is far more convenient than having to use chip and pin, let alone fumbling around in my pocket for change.

How would you pay strippers?

Soooo many potential 'swipe your card'-related responses that just wouldn't be appropriate for this forum...

**reds8n**

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/people-are-using-britains-new-plastic-money-to-play-vin-1787657733?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The new plastic polymer £5 notes are bonkers. They can’t be crumpled, are extremely hard (though not impossible) to burn, and some wonky stuff happens if you shine a laser through the queen’s face. By far the strangest revelation about this Money Of The Future? The £5 can be used as a rudimentary record player needle.

This phenomenon appears to have been first discovered by a multimedia artist from Norfolk named Michael Ridge who has previous player records using cacti, a bird skull, fish bones, and tortilla chips.

“I found the edges of the new plastic £5 notes to be quite sharp and hence potentially good at playing vinyl,” he told Gizmodo over email. “Set-up is very simple, a contact microphone is held on the back of the note which picks up and amplifies the music being played through the note itself, the contact microphone is connected to a small guitar amplifier off screen. The whole video is recorded live with no editing.”

With some folding, he was able to perform this same feat with the old £5 bill, though that hasn’t stopped others on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter from imitating it with Great Britain’s new space money.

For anyone considering a bit of bandwagon-hopping, keep in mind that using plastic money as a needle will almost certainly damage whatever record it’s playing, so use a record you don’t care about.

**Maddermax**

reds8n wrote:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/people-are-using-britains-new-plastic-money-to-play-vin-1787657733?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The new plastic polymer £5 notes are bonkers. They can’t be crumpled, are extremely hard (though not impossible) to burn, and some wonky stuff happens if you shine a laser through the queen’s face. By far the strangest revelation about this Money Of The Future? The £5 can be used as a rudimentary record player needle.

This phenomenon appears to have been first discovered by a multimedia artist from Norfolk named Michael Ridge who has previous player records using cacti, a bird skull, fish bones, and tortilla chips.

“I found the edges of the new plastic £5 notes to be quite sharp and hence potentially good at playing vinyl,” he told Gizmodo over email. “Set-up is very simple, a contact microphone is held on the back of the note which picks up and amplifies the music being played through the note itself, the contact microphone is connected to a small guitar amplifier off screen. The whole video is recorded live with no editing.”

With some folding, he was able to perform this same feat with the old £5 bill, though that hasn’t stopped others on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter from imitating it with Great Britain’s new space money.

For anyone considering a bit of bandwagon-hopping, keep in mind that using plastic money as a needle will almost certainly damage whatever record it’s playing, so use a record you don’t care about.

Nice, though I find it hilarious that 20 year old technology is being referred to as "space money"

**Skinnereal**

Space was 40 years ago, so why not?

**Breotan**

reds8n wrote:
Old/current ones will cease to be legal tender May 2017.

Seriously? O.o

Are you sure that's accurate? Allowing less than a year to exchange your paper seems problematic at best. What's the reasoning behind doing that?

The USA honors all old currency issued by the Federal Reserve regardless of new designs introduced. Even those old silver certificates are still legal currency.

Also, dumping all the old currency isn't very "green". Letting old notes continue to circulate, removing damaged/worn notes as needed seems to be a greener route to go. It reduces waste and eliminates the temporary (and situational) workload of collecting and destroying all those old notes in a single year.

Oh, as for Monopoly money, I'm going to have to agree that our $20 original redesign deserved that moniker.

**Compel**

I can personally confirm that the new £5 survive washing machines completely intact...

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

Breotan wrote:
reds8n wrote:
Old/current ones will cease to be legal tender May 2017.

Seriously? O.o

Are you sure that's accurate? Allowing less than a year to exchange your paper seems problematic at best. What's the reasoning behind doing that?

The USA honors all old currency issued by the Federal Reserve regardless of new designs introduced. Even those old silver certificates are still legal currency.

Also, dumping all the old currency isn't very "green". Letting old notes continue to circulate, removing damaged/worn notes as needed seems to be a greener route to go. It reduces waste and eliminates the temporary (and situational) workload of collecting and destroying all those old notes in a single year.

Oh, as for Monopoly money, I'm going to have to agree that our $20 original redesign deserved that moniker.

No longer being legal tender will just mean shops won't accept them any more, you'll still be able to exchange them at the bank of England

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/about/faqs.aspx

**Kilkrazy**

All old money can be exchanged, within practical limits.

I have a 2,000 lire note from the mid-1990s that I could take to Bank of Italy and change but it is worth less than £1 (a bit more now, actually, thanks to the collapse of the UKP, but that's a different matter.)

**jhe90**

There far more durable than the old notes.

They are far more practical, I like them.

**Dark Apostle 666**

I've had a few go through my till at work, and it seems like about a 3:1 ratio of people who have said anything saying something positive about the notes versus people saying negative things - though the "monopoly money" phrase has come up a fair few times.
I quite like them - they seem like they'll stay a lot cleaner and nicer than the old fivers, most of which are pretty grubby and raggedy by now.

**welshhoppo**

I mean, half of the old fivers I saw were held together by spit, sellotape and heroin residue. I'm glad that these ones seem tougher.

**Kilkrazy**

Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
I've had a few go through my till at work, and it seems like about a 3:1 ratio of people who have said anything saying something positive about the notes versus people saying negative things - though the "monopoly money" phrase has come up a fair few times.
I quite like them - they seem like they'll stay a lot cleaner and nicer than the old fivers, most of which are pretty grubby and raggedy by now.

Yeah, the problem with fivers is that they circulate rapidly, being a small denomination, and aren't common in circulation because they don't come out of "hole in the wall" (tm Barclays Bank plc) machines. Thanks to these factors they get a lot of wear and tear, and get shabby very quickly.

The main problem I have found is that it seems a bit harder to count the plastic notes than the paper notes, especially as the new plastic fivers are smaller.

To look at the other end of the spectrum, I get a few £50 notes through my till each week and they are in much better condition. Hopefully these will not go to plastic for a long time.

**A Town Called Malus**

Kilkrazy wrote:
and aren't common in circulation because they don't come out of "hole in the wall" (tm Barclays Bank plc) machines.

That's why I like Natwest machines, they often dispense fivers if they're trying to get some of them back out into circulation

**reds8n**

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38144598

The UK's new fiver has won many fans since it was launched in September.
It's tough. It doesn't tear. You can spill beer on it, put it through the washing machine and it will survive to buy another round.
But one thing it turns out it's not, is fat-free.
Because it turns out the plastic polymer it's made from also contains small amounts of tallow, derived from animal waste products - and some vegetarians are not happy.
Familiar to previous generations as the base for every day staples such as soap and candles, tallow is traditionally derived from beef or mutton (but sometimes pork) at the slaughterhouse or later in the food production process.
'Essence of bacon'
Vegans and vegetarians faced with this revelation have taken to social media to voice their concern and over 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for the contents of the notes to be changed.
"We demand that you cease to use animal products in the production of currency that we have to use," the petition reads.
On Twitter annoyed vegetarians and vegans have said it's "not cool" and "disgusting" and asking whether their rights have been considered.
However others have responded with rather more tongue-in-cheek approach, suggesting an "essence of bacon" is desirable in the UK's currency, speculating how many calories a fiver now contains and offering to relieve any affronted vegetarians of their unwanted notes.

The Bank of England so far has adopted a sanguine approach to the furore: "We can confirm that the polymer pellet from which the base substrate is made contains a trace of a substance known as tallow," it said in a statement.
But, so far, it has no plans to draw up a new recipe.

what a time to be alive eh ?!

**kronk**

Stop wasting bacon on money!

What the hell is wrong with you people!

**Nevelon**

Taking “Bringing home the bacon” to a new level.

Bravo.

**reds8n**

well played that poster

**welshhoppo**

I Love it. I'm going to give a pile of 5 pound notes to my vegan future sister in law.

**Kilkrazy**

They are difficult to count. The B of E says they will roughen up in use and get easier to riffle. I hope so.

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
I don't want the government to know that I'm buying cheap forgeworld from my friends.

I couldn't care less if the government knows. I don't want my wife finding out I just bought not-at-all-cheap out of production forgeworld epic stuff. That's the value of cash

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breotan wrote:
Seriously? O.o

Are you sure that's accurate? Allowing less than a year to exchange your paper seems problematic at best. What's the reasoning behind doing that?

India just announced that their larger currency notes would no longer be valid, over a space of about a week. It caused problems

Giving people a year seems pretty generous in comparison.

Anyhow, the money can still be deposited for any length of time afterwards, it's just that businesses don't have to take it as payment for a debt.

**kronk**

sebster wrote:
whembly wrote:
I don't want the government to know that I'm buying cheap forgeworld from my friends.

I couldn't care less if the government knows. I don't want my wife finding out I just bought not-at-all-cheap out of production forgeworld epic stuff. That's the value of cash

When I die, I don't want my wife to sell my GW and FW stuff for what I told her it cost...

**reds8n**

A Very Precise Calculation of Exactly How Many Cows Are Being Murdered to Make the New Fivers

It's a Vice article so language etc ahoy !