Josh Russell

I was at Interesting 2008 earlier this year where we had a sneaky look at the redesigned coins, presented by their designer, along with the story of how they came to be. As the name of the event suggests, it was really interesting!

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What I didn’t notice at the time, is a design flaw that I’m amazed was allowed to happen.

Take a look at the coins, do you see it?

Read about the new coins at the Royal Mint

There are no numbers. Meaning that if you can’t read, or just can’t read English, you’re at an immediate disadvantage.

This is such an obvious omission! How did this happen! Are they assuming that people will know what the coins are based on the previous coins? It might be the first time some people see our currency, they will be clueless.

Now maybe the transition will help, for a while there will be both the old and the new coins in circulation. This will probably solve the problem through comparison and thus familiarity. But how long are these coins going to be around, and how long until the old one disappear? I assume that banks will be collecting the old ones for several years to come, but one day the new ones will be the only ones. People think very short term don’t they.

Also…. coins? really? We don’t need them anymore. This is 2008 after-all, it’s the future! How much is this costing? I’m willing to bet that the cost is somewhere close to what the cost of transitioning away from coins to a newer technology would be..