There's more money out there than people think...

antoobrien

I'm surprised this didn't get a thread when the original story appear a couple of weeks ago.

Shops in Clones (Co. Monaghan) have started accepting old punts in payment for goods. This money has been stored for 10 years as it stopped being accepted as legal tender in 2002 after a 3 month transition period.

Shop owner Tony Morgan, from Clones, Co Monaghan, exchanged IR£948, the proceeds from the last fortnight of the 'Embrace the Punt' campaign at his general store, Liptons, and the local SuperValu.

As with the original transition period, change is given in euros - in this case vouchers to be redeemed in shops in Clones that are participating in the scheme (notes swapped at £1=€1.20, coins 1=1).

There's an estimated €350m worth of IR£ that are still out there, with the central bank swapping almost €3m of IR£ last year.

It begs the question: how is there so much money left out there? It can't all be souvenir money, so why hasn't it been converted?

Sleepy

Personally I'd have a few pounds in old coins and a £1 note somewhere, I know my mother has a full set of the old Lavery notes which'd be £185, and a full set of the older notes and a partial set of the plowman notes and she wouldn't even be a serious collector. There'd be a small fortune knocking around in the old coins: it's hardly worth a trip to the central bank to convert two or three pounds worth of punt shrapnel.

I'm guessing the figure is calculated by [how much was issued] - [what was decommissioned] without accounting properly for destroyed notes (washing machine etc) and, given that roman coins are still being dug out of the ground, there's probably a fair whack of it lost down the back of couches, in rubbish tips, under floorboards etc.

antoobrien

Sleepy wrote: »

Personally I'd have a few pounds in old coins and a £1 note somewhere, I know my mother has a full set of the old Lavery notes which'd be £185, and a full set of the older notes and a partial set of the plowman notes and she wouldn't even be a serious collector. There'd be a small fortune knocking around in the old coins: it's hardly worth a trip to the central bank to convert two or three pounds worth of punt shrapnel.

Yeah but a couple of quid each would make maybe £20m-£50m of souvenir money. Not many people would have been able to keep more than that.

Given the population in 2002 (approx 4m) the amount outstanding is in the region of £40m per head of population.

Sleepy wrote: »

I'm guessing the figure is calculated by [how much was issued] - [what was decommissioned] without accounting properly for destroyed notes (washing machine etc) and, given that roman coins are still being dug out of the ground, there's probably a fair whack of it lost down the back of couches, in rubbish tips, under floorboards etc.

€350m is a lot of money to dissappear like that.

ardmacha

This is a good deal for canny Clones shopkeepers as they bring the notes they gave €1.20 for to the Central Bank and get €1.27. I have a few punts that turned up when clearing out the house of a deceased relative, I must go to Dame St or Clones.

Sleepy

antoobrien wrote: »

Yeah but a couple of quid each would make maybe £20m-£50m of souvenir money. Not many people would have been able to keep more than that.

Given the population in 2002 (approx 4m) the amount outstanding is in the region of £40m per head of population.



€350m is a lot of money to dissappear like that.

It is but I'd have to question your souvenir money figure of £10 a head. My own mother would have in excess of £400 and she's not really even a collector, just a bank teller who wanted a souvenir of the past that she thought might possibly appreciate in value in the future.

So, some serious collectors are going to have thousands in punt notes and many of my mother's generation tried to hold onto some with the idea that they'd appreciate in value (and if you look on adverts they were often right).

You also then have to question how many memorial coins were struck by the Irish mint, we're all familiar with the millenium 50p but there was also the pearce 10 shilling, the millenium £1 coin and a UN pound coin at some stage: it's a good bet most of these are still in drawers around Ireland.

Even if you allow say 50m as the figure for what was destroyed or lost, you're down to a figure of about £75 a head left in punts. While I'd guesstimate my own holdings of such to be about a tenner (and that of my siblings would be probably similar, our parents would have more than enough punt notes to bring the average above £75 for the 5 of us. My other half's father is a coin collector so it's safe to say his trove of memorial and speciality coins would likely do similar in their family.

Then you have to consider how many irish coinage would have crossed the border since for so much of it's run the coins would have been almost identical to the usually more valuable sterling.

While £350m sounds staggering on first glance, I think it can be explained reasonably logically.

antoobrien

Sleepy wrote: »

It is but I'd have to question your souvenir money figure of £10 a head. My own mother would have in excess of £400 and she's not really even a collector, just a bank teller who wanted a souvenir of the past that she thought might possibly appreciate in value in the future.

So, some serious collectors are going to have thousands in punt notes and many of my mother's generation tried to hold onto some with the idea that they'd appreciate in value (and if you look on adverts they were often right).

You also then have to question how many memorial coins were struck by the Irish mint, we're all familiar with the millenium 50p but there was also the pearce 10 shilling, the millenium £1 coin and a UN pound coin at some stage: it's a good bet most of these are still in drawers around Ireland.

Even if you allow say 50m as the figure for what was destroyed or lost, you're down to a figure of about £75 a head left in punts. While I'd guesstimate my own holdings of such to be about a tenner (and that of my siblings would be probably similar, our parents would have more than enough punt notes to bring the average above £75 for the 5 of us. My other half's father is a coin collector so it's safe to say his trove of memorial and speciality coins would likely do similar in their family.

Then you have to consider how many irish coinage would have crossed the border since for so much of it's run the coins would have been almost identical to the usually more valuable sterling.

While £350m sounds staggering on first glance, I think it can be explained reasonably logically.

I took £10 because I don't know that many people that have much more than £5. I know that a lot of the younger generation (say anybody less than 13 at the time) wouldn't have that.

A family might between them have £20. I don't believe that between the 7 of us my family have £40 - it was money and we weren't rolling in it. I was 21 at the time, in college & penniless, so I could afford to keep maybe 1/2 pound coins, and a few bits of small change but no more than that. I certainly don't have any notes.

I'd say that more likely that a few people have found deceased relatives "mattress money" as well from ...other sources.

Sleepy

Oh, I'd say there's a fair amount of money still out there in mattresses, particularly in rural Ireland.

When you say other sources are you talking drug money etc?

antoobrien

Sleepy wrote: »

Oh, I'd say there's a fair amount of money still out there in mattresses, particularly in rural Ireland.

When you say other sources are you talking drug money etc?

Not drug money, but given the cute hoor nature of the country there's more than a bit of a chance that there are £s out there that couldn't be easily exchanged or spent without raising eyebrows.

Rabidlamb

Since we can't print euros we should start printing old punts which can still be handed in at the central bank.
Flood the economy with them, give everyone 40 quids worth a week that have to be spent & not saved.
Restart the gravy train.

Sleepy

Eh, aren't we doing enough of that already?

It's called Welfare... and we're spending too much on it already