Outdated Currency

Dnomyard

Having just seen the MSE warning that paper £50 and £20 notes will soon be unusable - only polymer will be legal tender  --  I have wondered about other currencies; surely it is not only British notes that can get forged? I have a a few hundred pounds worth of US dollars, Swiss francs and Euros, not converted back after holidays. I read a post on this forum saying that, since the Euro was invented at the beginning of this century, it had never changed, so there is no problem there. 

I shall take the MSE advice to change my £ before the deadline at a bank, but if I didn't, I can't believe I would have  problem changing afterwards at my own bank, although banks may not be obliged to do it. Other currencies may be trickier.

Does anyone know of an authoritative source on what currencies have had notes withdrawn and whether there are facilities in the UK to change?

Doshwaster

Don't know about other currencies but US dollar never expire: https://www.usa.gov/currency

(However if you had a very old dollar bill it will be worth more as a collector's item than its face value)

Sandtree

Dnomyard said:
I read a post on this forum saying that, since the Euro was invented at the beginning of this century, it had never changed, so there is no problem there.  

They were changed in 2019 but the first series remains valid. They didn't create a new €500 note and have actively taken the old ones out of circulation but any you may hold remain valid. 

There are various sites that offer exchange on FX targeted at the market of those with odds and sods of stuff rather than a meaningful amount of current currency. They tend to show the different things out there but dont go into the detail of if they are still legal tender or if there is any other mechanism of exchange (they do differentiate between withdrawn and obsolete which more or less covers if they are still active currency). Even those have a finite number of countries covered and if you have some old Argentine Austral then its basically collector value since they became obsolete in 1991.

J_B

I have a 5 KROONI note here issued by EESTI PANK

Anyone want to make me an offer?

Neil49

J_B said:

I have a 5 KROONI note here issued by EESTI PANK

Anyone want to make me an offer?

At just over 15 Kroon to the Euro you're not going to make a fortune from it!

Dnomyard

Doshwaster said           :https://www.usa.gov/currency       

An excellent website, thanks. One wonders why, if the Americans don't need to recycle their money, the Bank of England makes us do it. Don't tell me the UK crooks are smarter than those across the pond

Sandtree

Bank of England continues to allow you to exchange withdrawn notes

US has withdrawn various notes over time, eg the $10,000 note which was stopped in 1969. Technically its still legal tender but with only a few hundred authentic versions left its probably worth more as a collectable than its face value. However if you were to somehow get one in your change I would strongly suggest that attempting to spend it would be much harder than a uk paper note. 

There are many ways that the UK and US are different not sure the fact that the US have relatively basic bills is an indication of their criminal levels... after all the UK estimates 1 in 40,000 of GBP notes are fake -v- 1 in 10,000 of USD. 

NoodleDoodleMan

"Does anyone know of an authoritative source on what currencies have had notes withdrawn and whether there are facilities in the UK to change?"

A few years ago I went to currency shop (similar to Ramsdens type stores) to get some Russian roubles for a cruise port of call in St.Petersburg.

The young lad serving me had no experience of these banknotes - but had access to large reference book with detailed sections on just about every currency available to order.

I wonder if major branches of High Street banks would hold something similar ?

eDicky

Dnomyard said:

Having just seen the MSE warning that paper £50 and £20 notes will soon be unusable - only polymer will be legal tender  --  I have wondered about other currencies;

Don't worry, the Bank of England is pretty much the only Central Bank with the audacity to inconvenience the public every time a new banknote is issued by withdrawing use of the previous issue within a year or two.

Apart from overnight cancellations by the likes of Turkey, India etc, old issue banknotes are usually taken out of circulation naturally and gradually when received by banks, and even other sterling notes, Scottish/NI, don't become unusable by a certain date in the same way as English notes. Canada and Denmark and maybe others have withdrawn use of old paper notes, but a decade or two after issue of polymer notes.