Originally Posted by
jib71
A bit of Googling tells me that the old coins were "demonetized" in 1998, so this baby isn't actually legal tender. I guess I'll have to drop by a bank branch when I next pass one.
Your advice to check change certainly is sound. Having lived in a more honest place for 14 years, I think I'm a little too trusting for life in this city.
Whether or not it's legal tender is fairly irrelevant. "Legal tender" has a very specific definition that is to do with debt repayment.
A shop may refuse your money if it wants, whatever size the coin is, without giving a reason. Equally, shops often accept all sorts of financial instruments (Scottish notes, Euros, credit cards, vouchers. Hell, they could even accept chocolate buttons if they thought it made good business sense).
As far as your 50p goes, most retailers (and customers) will refuse them. I haven't seen one for years. Maybe it was a mistake, or maybe the retailer was trying to sneak one out of his till. You may well persuade a bank to swap it out of goodwill. I've just changed about £40 worth of old 5p & shilling pieces (about the same size as a current 10p) at my local Barclays. They insisted on counting rather than weighing, which took some time. I'm a Barclays customer, but I wasn't asked to prove it.