Royal Mint: No new 1p coins made for first time in decades

[Neil]

 
No new 1p and 2p coins were produced by the Royal Mint last year.

It is the first time in decades that it stopped making the coins, as the Treasury said there were already enough in circulation.

There are an estimated 10.5 billion 1p coins and around 6.3 billion 2p coins in use across the UK.

The government said it is not changing the mix of coins and notes, and it is not phasing copper coins out.

The last year that no 1p coins were produced was 1972.

For 2ps, the last year the UK went without new ones was 1984.

The Mint is owned by the Treasury, which requests that coins be made to meet the needs of the economy.


The Treasury said no £2 coins were produced either last year, because "there are already enough".

Cash use has fallen across the UK, and some feared the end of copper coins when the government announced a consultation on the mix of cash in circulation earlier this year.

But the Treasury concluded that the coins were still needed, and said they would continue to be used "for years to come".

Over 2 million people are estimated to be almost entirely reliant on cash in their daily lives, with the elderly, vulnerable and those in rural communities likely to be hardest hit by any decline in cash availability.

[Val Beechey]

Why am I NOT surprised ! I don’t care how many peeps are reliant on cash in their daily lives, the 1p is a waste of space. Who still uses them, I don’t, do you ?

As an addition to the whole, at the moment they have a small value but if they were discontinued how much difference would they make, not a lot.
Look at decimalisation. When that was introduced all the prices were rounded up. Those of us who can remember will admit we all thought it was a catch (penny  )
had a little moan then carried on regardless.

Same would happen again if the penny was taken out of circulation. The sooner the better, I say !

Thanks for posting Neil. Good to have a little out-burst now and then 

[probono]

There is a war on cash - if we don't use cash, everything we do can be taxed and tracked and our lives monitored even more closely than before. And additionally the government could accidently lose all our money overnight - That's aside from all the targeted advertising from shops that know all our habits.

It's a bit like the move to electric vehicles - very easy to turn the juice off and send the army (from wherever) in.

Aside from that (only slightly tongue in cheek)  - the demise of the penny would mean the denomination disappearing for the first time in 1300 years or so. Look what happened to the roman empire when they stopped minting the denarius...... (50 years of civil war).