Barbara backs charity call for last of your ‘round ones’
JUST days before it rolls out of circulation, a charity is asking for the last of your round pound coins.
Around 500 million old pounds are reportedly still in circulation, and yesterday ex-EastEnders star Barbara Windsor teamed up with the BBC’s Children In Need mascot Pudsey for his Round Pound Countdown.
The coins will stop being legal tender on Sunday at midnight but they can be donated at more than 3,000 post offices nationwide until November 17 – the night of the BBC Children In Need live appeal show.
Dame Barbara said: “This campaign really caught my attention as Pudsey’s Round Pound Countdown is such a great way of getting valuable use from what is soon to be a ‘worthless’ coin.
Wallets
“It’s brilliant that Children In Need, the Royal Mint and the Treasury are giving them value again.
“Instead of having these out-of-service coins cluttering up the drawers and bottoms of our wallets and purses, they will help children lead a better life.”
The new 12-sided £1 coin, complete with hologram, was launched in March in a bid to beat increasingly sophisticated counterfeiters.
Around one in every 30 old-style pound coins in people’s change in recent years has been fake.
Major banks have said they will continue to accept deposits of round pounds from their customers after October 15.