How to spot a fake pound coin?

[bonus2010]

Just seen an interesting web page explaining
how to spot a fake pound coin. Apparently
there's some ?30 million in circulation.

Does anyone know, maybe working in banking
what the banks are doing to remove fake
pound coins?

Does the automatic coin deposit machines
automatically detect them?

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | How do you spot a fake pound coin?

[barrowmanandrew]

the banks treat the fakes like real coins and give them back out.
some fakes cannot be detected by the counting machines.
this has been going on for years...

[imtiazali786uk]

Bite the coin and hope your teeth don't break in the process!

[janobi]

Easiest way is the symbols on either side of the coin, if they dont line up then the coin is fake.

[bonus2010]

Fake ?1 coins

Not surprised to hear that the banks are treating fake pound
coins as real because if we receive a fake pound coin it will be
in our change - received from a shop - who in turn receive their
coinage from banks.

This would indicate that banks are not doing very much, in
terms of checking for fake pound coins.

I went to use a coin deposit machine at RBS for the first time,
and received some assistance because I really wasn't sure
how the machine worked. The bank assistant explained that
I was to keep an eye on the rejection tray - where the machine
rejects foreign coins etc.... I said to her 'this would be real handy
for all those fake pound coins that I hear about' to which her
reply was none, in fact I detected an air of clamming up..

[chucklor]

Fake coins are also a more yellow, they just don't fade the same a a genuine one, and if you tap 2 genuine coins together they make a crisp metallic sound, where as if you tap a fake one against a real one it makes a dull thud....chuck

[barrowmanandrew]

i have worked in the gaming machine indusrty for years.
when i worked in amusement arcades we used to get ?500 bags of coins from banks.
we used to get alot of duds from the banks...
banks actually admitted that they recycled these coins.
we used to save up the really bad/damaged coins and hand them back to the bank at the same time. the bank would happily credit us for them.
also alot of gaming mc's will accept the dud coins (depending on how damaged/good the fake is)

[wongers]

who gives a ~~~~ what they look like as long as you can spend them any donations will be gratefully accepted

[Meat-Head]

who gives a ~~~~ what they look like as long as you can spend them any donations will be gratefully accepted

REALLY can't (as long as good) the problem with forgered coins/notes etc, what goes around comes around!

[caveman_nige]

I had one once, you could scratch the surface of the fake with another coin. It looked a little more beaten up than a real coin normally looks but apart from that i would not have notice until somebody pointed it out.

I wanted to keep it so i left it lying around at home, my wife not knowing it was a fake decided to spend it though and shoved it in her purse. Eventually i realised it was gone and she said she had spent it and was not bothered when i told here it was fake..

[thered]

who gives a ~~~~ what they look like as long as you can spend them any donations will be gratefully accepted

yer i agree you can sponsor me with the rest of em too when wongers had his fill