Not Legal Tender

A few months ago there was a lot of press coverage about the imminent demise of the one pound coin, and its replacement with a new version. There was also a lot said about the number of counterfeits in circulation.

I had a look at some coinage in my pocket and found one which was obviously counterfeit, which I showed to J. The image of the queen on the "heads" side was obviously wrong, and there was some peculiar image on the "tales" side. J wandered off to do other things, I turned the coin at various angles and saw that the image was a skull. A pirate coin if ever I saw one.

I googled - as we all do these days - and found I was quite wrong. It turned out to be a one pound Gibralter coin, that skull a neanderthal discovery in caves on the rock (I must have some of those genes). 

I decided to see how many coins of different "tail" faces I could collect in my change between then and the end of the old coin. The answer is 15 (out of a possible 24 in circulation) and I have others too. I will spend them on something worthwhile this weekend, whilst some shops are still accepting them.