Going to Euro...

[Master Jmd]

If the government decided to make a poll for if we wanted to go to the euro, what would you vote?

...i would vote no, because i would like true british coinage to stay...

[william]

No, never, because I also prefer British coinage from the Euro, plus I like the Machin stuff, and I don't want that to go from circulation, and if we did change to Euros, I wouldn't want to wait thirty years for them to get as old as British coins in circulation are at the moment!

[kuhli]

NEVER!

[Emperor Oli]

Nononononono

[Half Penny Jon]

No, because their coins are rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Master Jmd]

No, because their coins are rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!

hehe, well said

[Geoff T]

If we're being realistic rather than romantic, the we have to accept that the economic arguments for and against joining the Euro far outweigh the numismatic ones. No coinage system is written in stone, otherwise we'd all still be using pre-conquest hammered stuff.

I'm no fan of the Euro from a numismatic point of view, but that's very much a secondary consideration.

(Sorry, have I said something heretical?...)

[william]

Do you think we will ever join the euro?

[Emperor Oli]

I was going to say what Geoff said but I too thought I would get hissed and booed! I hope that we won't join the Euro, for more economic than numismatic reasons. We have to pass the Chancellor's much-fabled "Five-tests" first.

[Half Penny Jon]

I hope that we don't because I prefer our system which is and will always be the best in the world!

[Emperor Oli]

Hmm our system exactly like erm the Euro, Dollar, Swiss France, Russian Ruble?

[william]

So do I, plus the Euros are ugly!

[wybrit]

I like the results of this poll so far. Everyone on CU knows how I feel about that Euro rubbish.

[Half Penny Jon]

Hmm our system exactly like erm the Euro, Dollar, Swiss France, Russian Ruble?

What I was trying to say is that we have one of the most prefered currencies in the world which dates back centuries in terms of pounds and pence.

[Emperor Oli]

But it's exactly the same as all the other countries of the World - it's not just our system.

[Aethelred]

I am not sure if I can use the F-word here, but I would vote F*** NO!!!!

To me the Pound is sacred and should never be scrapped! If I had my way your country would bring back the old £/s/d. system, it worked fine for over 500 years after all.

While I was at it (I might need to become king to swing this) I would move the mint back to Tower Hill and conduct a seance and ask Pistrucci and the Wyons what they would want done!

[Sylvester]

be prepared for the arguments between the Wyons and Benedetto.

[Sylvester]

i'd reintroduce predecimal too, and gold and silver.

[Master Jmd]

To me the Pound is sacred and should never be scrapped! If I had my way your country would bring back the old £/s/d. system, it worked fine for over 500 years after all.

yes, i would just love to go down to a shop and spend a shilling or something

[Geoff T]

yes, i would just love to go down to a shop and spend a shilling or something

Reading this romantic nostalgia for pre-decimal days from those who never experienced them prompts me to post a message which has been running through my thoughts for a while. I'm acutely aware than many of our regular forumees - and indeed our esteemed webmaster - never have spent a shilling in the days when it was worth 12d and that a certain misty-eyedness creeps in when they look back to those times.

I thought, then, I'd put on record just what it was like to live in the pre-decimal era, or at least its final years in the 1960s.

For a start, you have to put yourself into the mindset which didn't see pre-decimal currency as anything unusual. We were aware that others saw £.s.d. as rather quaint an old-fashioned, but to us it was just the norm. You need to bear this in mind when you dismiss the decimal stuff which is the norm today as uninteresting.

Furthermore, the idea that our pockets were bursting with a miscellany of coins from 1816 onwards just wasn't true. Most of the silver wasn't, in fact, silver. It was post-1946 cupro-nickel, and mostly post-1953 apart from a plethora of 1948 stuff. Forget all that romantic nonsense about finding 19th century silver in your change. You didn't, because then as now all the best stuff was in the hands of dealers and collectors and you were left, literally, with the common coin of the day, generally quite worn as it was in constant circulation.

You might occasionally get the odd bit of George V silver, but only very infrequently and you never saw anything earlier. The early stuff you did see was post-1860 bronze, but anything Victorian was usually worn to a disc which no collector would look twice at. 20th century bronze was common, but again usually worn through circulation. Funnily enough, almost everybody seemed to know about the 1933 penny and was on the look out for one!

So, before all you youngsters get carried away waxing lyrical about pre-decimal days, hear it from one who was there that it wasn't as you fondly imagine it. Moreover, what was ordinary to us was once modern to our predecessors, who no doubt waxed equally lyrically about the good old days when we had guineas - and you can carry that argument back as far as you want.

I've said before that no system is written in stone, which fact those who misguidedly go on about keeping the pound as if it had been with us since time immemorial do well to remember.

Here endeth the lesson

[Chris Perkins]

Thanks Geoff,

To be honest all this romantic Predecimal reflection by the 11-15 year old group gets right on my @$t$ too!

It should all be about economics, and if the Euro is right for the UK economically and if it will help the UK be stronger in the the world scene, then stuff the Machin head coins and lets put jobs, industrial and financial etc gain for all at the top of our priority list.

However, I do think the the UK can continue to be in the strong economic position its in without the Euro (so far it certainly hasn't suffered from not being in the Euro), and I like everyone, don't like the idea of financial control being lost to Brussels.

But, if we need to join the Euro boat, even temporarily, and if it can be profitable to all of us, then I really think the traditionalists need to change their mindset and stop harking. If for some reason the £ goes belly up in a South American fashion, then I would absolutely welcome a Euro currency.

I don't think that will happen, and I don't think the people would vote Euro in a referendum (even if the £ did an Argentina) because most of the public are fools, and they just follow each other like pathetic sheep.

Anyway, for the moment, lets keep the £ but remain realistic, it certainly does us no harm, but for gods sake, keep an open mind you lot, and stop drawing the line purely on 'Pounds look and feel sound' grounds. Your narrow mindedness scares me slightly!

By the way, on Oli's political compass link website, I came out about where bloody Ghandi was, so don't argue!