Spending Sovereigns?

[Gollop]

If you had 10 sovs and you decided to spend them to pay for something that costs £10, how would you record that? Not that you would I just don't really get the fact that they are legal tender.

Edited January 5 by Gollop
explain

[JohnA1]

Why would you want to record a private transaction?

[ArgentSmith]

 

On 05/01/2024 at 21:31, Gollop said:

If you had 10 sovs and you decided to spend them to pay for something that costs £10, how would you record that?

You could use audio recorder 👍

[Sovhead]

On 05/01/2024 at 21:31, Gollop said:

If you had 10 sovs and you decided to spend them to pay for something that costs £10, how would you record that? Not that you would I just don't really get the fact that they are legal tender.

Send them to me I’ll send you an Amazon £10 gift card and you can record it anyway you want 😁

[Bigmarc]

On 05/01/2024 at 21:31, Gollop said:

I just don't really get the fact that they are legal tender.

Was legal tender. One pound in weight of silver was equal to one sovereign and was like it for hundreds of years. This is where the term £sterling comes from.

[SidS]

All legal tender means is that such payment can be used to settle debts. So technically if you were taken to court for a £10 debt you could offer to pay for it using ten sovereigns, and it would be legally acceptable. If they refuse, then I believe the debt would be discharged, as they've refused to take legal tender as settlement. Although I'm happy to be corrected on that.

As for payment in shops etc. they can choose what to take or refuse and legal tender doesn't come into it. So "we don't accept £50 notes" etc. is perfectly allowed.

Edited January 8 by SidS

[JohnA1]

10 hours ago, ArgentSmith said:

 

You could use audio recorder 👍

I prefer pen and paper.

Nothing electronic, nobody else's liability🙃

[Silverlocks]

On 05/01/2024 at 21:31, Gollop said:

If you had 10 sovs and you decided to spend them to pay for something that costs £10, how would you record that? Not that you would I just don't really get the fact that they are legal tender.

It's really just an accident of history that they're still legal tender.  The Bank of England stopped circulating sovereigns in 1914 with the onset of WWI, and then after the war, the pound had inflated to the point that the melt value exceeded the face value of the coin, so they didn't introduce them back into circulation.

However, they had been in demand as bullion and the demand continued - something like half of all sovereigns ever minted were actually manufactured after they were withdrawn from circulation, but were produced as bullion due to the continuing demand.  A part of the reason folks loved the sovereign was that they were minted to very precise specifications, and guaranteed by the Bank of England.  

They are still on the books as legal tender with a face value of £1.  In theory you can take them to the Bank of England and they will redeem it for £1, although nobody in their right mind would do that as the bullion value is some hundreds of times that.  They haven't been taken off the books as legal tender, which is where they get their exemption from capital gains tax.

As for recording it, you've spent £10.  The bullion value of the sovereign is immaterial to this accounting.  However, if you have them on the books as assets, you would likely have to write that down, and possibly you could offset the loss against the gains on other investments.  You'd have to talk to a tax beanie to get the low down on what can and can't be done in this situation.

[JohnA1]

I feel there might be funny business behind the sovereign.

At some point I discovered (by accident) that it is CGT exempt even in Greece, which has never even been member of the commonwealth. Impossible to get a straight answer as to its status as legal tender. The sov should be legally treated there as a foreign bullion coin - but it isn't

I suspect it might be linked to the Rothschilds who are behind practically all central banks, including the so-called Central Bank of Greece.

Worth digging I think..🤔

Edited January 8 by JohnA1

[Booky586]

5 hours ago, JohnA1 said:

I feel there might be funny business behind the sovereign.

At some point I discovered (by accident) that it is CGT exempt even in Greece, which has never even been member of the commonwealth. Impossible to get a straight answer as to its status as legal tender. The sov should be legally treated there as a foreign bullion coin - but it isn't

I suspect it might be linked to the Rothschilds who are behind practically all central banks, including the so-called Central Bank of Greece.

Worth digging I think..🤔

It could be explained by the strong link by Greece to the sovereign as millions of them were pumped into Greece after the Second World War to prevent economic collapse. There's a great video by the British Numismatic Society here (skip to 17:40 mins for the Greek interest but it's worth listening to the full story):

 

Edited January 8 by Booky586

[GoldDiggerDave]

Decimal or pre decimal? 
 

How many pennies are you spending? 

[JohnA1]

2 hours ago, Booky586 said:

It could be explained by the strong link by Greece to the sovereign as millions of them were pumped into Greece after the Second World War to prevent economic collapse. There's a great video by the British Numismatic Society here (skip to 17:40 mins for the Greek interest but it's worth listening to the full story):

 

Nice find, thanks.

 

[Petra]

2 hours ago, Booky586 said:

It could be explained by the strong link by Greece to the sovereign as millions of them were pumped into Greece after the Second World War to prevent economic collapse. There's a great video by the British Numismatic Society here (skip to 17:40 mins for the Greek interest but it's worth listening to the full story):

 

Part of keeping Greece on our side after ww11 when we helped beat the communists during their civil war.😮🤔

[SeverinDigsSovereigns]

For a pound, and you could hop on a bus for 2 of them