Australia's very funny money
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- Опубліковано 18 лис 2023
- Bernadette Banner, Emily Graslie and Dani Siller ('Escape This Podcast') face a question about a currency conundrum.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcast.com
GUESTS:
Bernadette Banner: @bernadettebanner, / msbbanner
Emily Graslie: @EmilyGraslie, / ehmee
Dani Siller: @consumethismedia, / escthispodcast
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. - Розваги
I’m so happy that my question got accepted and used on the show
You can probably tell what sporting event was on when I wrote it
Thanks for sending it in!
@@andrewesteban6104 Which sporting event was it?
@@jacktattersall9457 the FIFA women’s World Cup, where the Australian team is called the Matildas
@@andrewesteban6104of course😅
"In come the dollars and in come the cents, to replace the pound, and the shillings, and the pence. Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix on the 14th February 1966."
Close😊
So if an Aussie is annoyed with a particular bank teller, they can poke a bunch of holes in their bank notes and force the teller to calculate the area of what's left. Brilliant!
Only if they want to go to prison for 2 years for defacing currency.
He could simply weigh each bank note with a precise scale and an intact one for reference.
@@camfunme Hmm, if only there was a way to poke the holes away from the ever-watchful gaze of the omnipresent bank teller.
Wait, based on a previous episode I'd expect the teller to give you the money in 5c coins out of spite.
@@epiendless1128 We got the Lateral Cinematic Universe here
Two corrections related to Tom's idea of cutting a $20 note into thirds:
1. 1/3 of $20 rounded up is $7, not $8.
2. RBA's policy is that the value is rounded to the nearest dollar, not rounding up. Not that it makes a difference for thirds, but you can't, for example, exchange 57% and 43% of a $10 note to get $11.
Also, it is a crime to intentionally damage the notes, so you wouldn't want to do this repeatedly.
But $20 in third's would still give you $21, right?
And $5 in thirds is $1,66 each, for which you get back $2 each, so $6 total. You can make some serious profit with that, if it is true. I wouldn't try it all at the same bank.
@@edgarleftYes, as long as all portions are judged to be exact thirds. But if one is judged to be slightly less, you gain nothing and risk heavy fines for deliberately damaging money.
Edit: also you probably wouldn't make much profit, given the time and effort in breaking the notes (which is not easy), traveling to all these different banks, etc.
@@petermcandrew7787 I think the best you could get would be cutting a $100 into 199 equal pieces, and on each transaction you "profit" slightly less than 50 cents.
@@justforplaylists that's probably why they specify the piece has to be between 20 and 80 % of the note to be accepted
@petermcandrew7787 ah that makes more sense. I kinda like this rule, you note doesn't lose all value if damaged
“In come the dollars and in come the cents
To replace the pounds and the shillings and the pence
So be prepared when the coins begin to mix
On the fourteenth of February 1966”
Dad used to sing that one to me. He was an adult at the time (just barely). Weirdly, my mum (4 years younger than him) became an adult just one year after he did, because that part of the century had a LOT of legal updates happening…
Nostalgia, nostalgia .......
Shortly after this episode aired Australia's economy collapsed as everyone started making change by cutting the notes.
The real process for this involves sending them away and waiting, and you can be rejected if the banknote wasn't unwittingly damaged in your possession or you knowingly received a damaged banknote.
I can't remember when the last time was I used cash. Almost 100% of my purchases are by card these days.
@@immanuelajsame here I stopped using cash in shops when they brought out eftpos the only place I use cash is at the markets and at the card club. Not all market stall owners have eftpos readers yet.
Australian here, I already knew about this rule. Thankfully I’ve never had to test it.
@@peter65zzfdfh100% correct. There is no quick in and out situation where a person just walks in with damages notes and walks out with fresh cash. There is a lotttt of waiting involved and a decent chance of getting nothing in the end.
Emily Graslie, Bernadette Banner, and Tom Scott is not the crossover I ever expected to see.
I don't know Emily, but I was certainly delighted to see Tom and Bernadette together. 🙂
Now I just need an episode with the Lockpicking Lawyer (just his hands onscreen), to complete my Bingo card.
I'm not even sure if it was lateral or another of Tom's gameshows, but I remember him acknowledging that he had a big gap, not having anyone in fiber arts, or makeup, or several other niches, and not knowing where to even start finding someone in those types of entertainment that might be interested. I'm loving this. I kinda wished he had brought on someone who had more of a clothing history background then just a costuming background though. Even as a novice with no extra formal history learning, I've seen her get historical facts wrong on several occasions
@@epiendless1128ooo I'd love to see the lockpicking lawyer on here. Or atlas pro, or domain of science
I didn't read the video description, so I didn't know who was in it. Then I thought "Hang on, is that Emily Graslie? And Bernadette Banner?" And then the names came up on screen, and it was!
@@epiendless1128Emily is the host of a UA-cam channel named The Brain Scoop. She works for the Field Museum in Chicago and does great episodes on a variety of subjects. The channel actually went silent for a few years, but she just returned a few days ago!! Also, I'm like 80% sure I half slept through an episode of Lateral that had the Lockpicking Lawyer. 😁
My Canadian parents lived in Australia for a couple of years in the 1960's. They brought back a few little bits of Aussie culture with them, which added wonderful colour to my childhood. One of those was a folk music record (by Buster Noble) that included the song "Click go the Shears". I hadn't thought of that song for years, until watching this... thanks for that little reminder of my childhood!! 🙂
In the question it said that Matilda was content with her transaction when she left, sooo...did she 'waltz' out of the bank?
Im gonna have to trust that this is true, but I've never heard of it because not only is it pretty difficult to tear an Australian banknote, if you somehow manage to rip it you'd just patch it with sticky tape and palm it off to a supermarket.
I’ve heard of it, I knew the answer straight away (although not the round up to the nearest dollar part). I thought it was common knowledge in Australia
It's technically true but I wouldn't necessarily test it unless you just have a note with the corner torn off or torn in half and taped back together, which pretty much anywhere will accept. Trying to get oartial valie for a note with less than 80% present is a pretty long, drawn out process and has a decent chance of not getting you anything in the end because there's a whole list of clauses why the RBA might not accept the note. A lot of effort to go to for half a fiver or something. The better option is just to treat your cash decently. Aus cash is hard to damage, you pretty much gotta do stupid stuff to break it.
I’ve taken a partial $5 to a bank, they placed it on a grid to help calculate how much was missing, and I was paid the value accordingly. That was about 15 or 20 years ago, they may have changed how they measure the notes now
True. You can also take it to the bank and have it exchanged.
@@__luthien_tinuviel3797that's what they'll do if you only have a partial note, to discourage you from trying to cash in the other part. Usually they will only accept notes with the transparent window, so the other fragments become worthless.
About 20 years ago my sister ironed a $5 note because it was creased. Contrary to whatever she thought biaxially-oriented polypropylene would do in response to contact heating, it shrivelled up like a fish in the sun. Fortunately it did not smell anything remotely as foul, though the queen had become the sultana. If I'd known about the note swapping rule at the time I'd have taken it in and demanded to exchange it for a tiny $50 note on the basis of condensed value.
back when the notes where paper my grandma would iron the note often. so when they changed to plastic, well it only took one try
I flatten mine on side of hot kettle, no problems.
We have had plenty of these handed in, which we exchanged for valid notes no problem. 50/50 whether the situation is "ironing b3cause it got crinkled" or "left in trouser pocket in the drier". Either way they look about the same lol.
Put a towel down over it? I’m sure the heat would make it through enough to flatten it but not enough to melt it. I’ve done that with other plastic items and it’s worked fine
Unfortunately when multiple polymer notes melt - like for example, $3,000 worth of $50’s left in a sandwich press by accident - it is nigh impossible for them to calculate the remaining value as they sludge together in such a way that the serial numbers can’t be read anymore. It was a good sandwich though
2:30 Australian notes also have a tactile part denoting the amount, with 1 dot for $5, 2 for $10 and so on.
Also each denomination is a slightly different length
@@user-kx8vn6tm1dThere are four times you used the word “it”. Having to play mind gymnastics with each “it” is doing my head in. Please never get a job writing instructions for things.
@@user-kx8vn6tm1d You definitely can feel it, but only on the side where the bump is curved outwards. Maybe try again with another note.
Keep in mind that people with a visual impairment tend to have an enhanced sense of touch.
@@teeanahera8949 all 4 times refer to the 'tactile part denoting the amount'. I suspect that dehydration or sleep deprivation is the reason you are doing mind gymnastics with ''it'' and not the correct use of ''it''
@@marysdanceworld6066it's also only on the new notes, there's a lot of old fives still in circulation as well as fifties. It seems like you're more likely to get old notes than new ones. Visually impaired people would have to rely on the colour or size for the old notes which is presumably more difficult the worse your sight is. I can imagine it's very easy to make a mistake in telling the length of notes apart if they're not totally flat or straight.
The weird thing about US dollars is that ADA is often championed as one of those things that US did exceptionally well. However, this somehow doesn’t translate to making notes more approachable for visually impaired people.
what is ada ?
The Americans with Disabilities Act
@@glorrinThe Americans with Disabilities Act, which bans discrimination based on disability & requires employers and public places to provide reasonable accommodations for disabled people
Meanwhile over the border, Canada has different colour bank notes with varied indentations on them so that even a blind person would be able to tell the value of a given note.
That's what's funny about America vs. Europe. America has good accessbility for public places, businesses, and tourist locations, but has TERRIBLE public transportation.
Meanwhile, Europe has amazing public transportation, but a lot of places aren't accessible.
only one problem, defacing any currency in Australia is an offence, including cutting. So no you can’t just cut em up! But yes I've had bank note exchanged no problem. plus theres a serial number on both corners and brail including all sorts of security measures on these polymer notes. I think we licence the tech to a bunch of different countries like the EU. If your notes are plasticy thank an Aussie! CSIRO probably
Not quite. Polymer notes were first produced and trial tested in two denominations in Canada ( by Canadian engineering company AGRA Vadecko and US Mobil Chemical Company) , types called Tyvek (trialed in Haiti and Costa Rica in the early 1980s) and Bradvek (Isle Of Man) 1983) were also developed but were not successful. Australia developed the current modern polymer notes and was the first to introduce them totally (developed by the CSIRO, RBA and Melbourne University). The RBA wanted to provide the technology free to other nations but the CSIRO disagreed, favouring a commercial model. Fifty nations and territories currently use polymer notes, 25 of these have their notes produced in Australia by Securency International Pty Ltd.
No way!! Really!!
This is like when I found out that the idea of ballot voting in private is an Australian invention, so much so that when it was implemented in the US it was called Australian voting or something
We lived in Australia for a couple years and fell in love with your polymer banknotes. When we came back to Canada, Canada introduced polymer banknotes.
@@JohnHF1957 yes, as you say, the Tyvek notes were not successful, their ink would smug & notes would break apart, amongst other issues. The CSIRO's invention was the first to actually work
7:20 I love everyone's reaction here: Emily and Tom's amazement, contrasted with Dani's utter horror :D
Right from the start, I was thinking of decimalization (if I'd been on the podcast, my first question would have been "Did this happen in 1966"). That jingle will be forever in our brains - even those of us born after decimal currency was well and truly established - because it was just so brilliantly done.
In America, torn bills (banknotes for those of you in the Commonwealth) can be redeemed for face value iff (mathematical term for "if and only if") they are more than 50% of the bill and contain the serial number. And the American slang term "two bits" meaning a Quarter (our 25¢ coin) refers back to colonial times when the Spanish Dollar was legal tender and could be cut into as many as eight pieces, or "bits," giving them the common name "pieces of eight."
Wow, so that's where "two bits" comes from! Thank you, that's good to know!
yes, the popular American slang term "two bits"...
I could have sworn that the USA previously had a rule stating that since our bills have 2 serial numbers on them, if you have a fragment with both serial numbers, it could be exchanged at full value. If you had a fragment with one serial number, it was worth half face value. And a smaller piece without a serial number was likely worthless, unless you had lots of shards of lots of bills that were mostly destroyed somehow, like in a fire.
But looking up the rules, you are correct @bob_._.. If you have clearly more than 50% of the bill (note) it can be exchanged for full value, while smaller pieces are not worth anything (unless, again, you can prove the rest of the bill was somehow destroyed).
i was going to mention that a Spanish Silver rael was designed to be split into 8 pieces.
It's litterly how change was made
I remember that skipping song from a childhood spent partly in the USA - "2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar."
I had a lot of trouble making change when I first came here and found there were 20c coins rather than 25c coins.
I have some old Australian coins lying around in my childhood coin collection. The demoninations are ridiculous, there's a threepence coin and a six pence coin, a shilling is worth 1/20th of a pound, a florin coin is worth two shillings... It's complete madness. And of course there's the halfpenny coin.
Same as the British coins before 1971. And the sixpence coin (or 'tanner') was so popular that the government bowed to public pressure and kept it in circulation as legal tender after decimalisation (worth 2 1/2 new pence), while at the same time collecting them in as quickly as possible, so in practice they died out fairly soon afterwards.
I don't recall a rhyme but I can still remember 'D day' was 15 February 1971.
See the Americans, Canadians other than the Quebecois, the Burmese, Liberians, and some British people who still refuse to go all metric.
To decimalise Australia made 10 shillings a dollar, Britain which decimalise about 5 years later considered doing the same but instead stayed with the pound (being 20 shillings 20x5p) apparently because there were still aspirations that the pound might once more be a reserve currency
@@RylanceStreet The UK supposedly kept the sixpence until 1980, because the London Underground ticket machines used that particular coin a lot and they pressured the government to keep the coin so they wouldn't have to replace their ticket machines (which I'm guessing were quite new at the time). I would guess that places outside of the London area probably saw less sixpences in circulation after decimalisation as they would probably have been distributed mostly to the London area thereafter.
The UK had a song called 'Decimalisation' sung by Max Bygraves.
Crazy to think that there was a time, in living memory, where half a penny was a significant enough amount of money that it had its own coin
You are referring to the RBA note grid and although this is technically correct, in my 35+ years of working in the banking industry I have never been asked to do a part refund. We have of course replaced damaged notes for new ones and exchanged the old paper notes for the new polymer notes. I even remember when the first $10 notes had faulty holograms on them that pealed off. Old, damaged or defaced notes are set aside and sent to the RBA to be taken out of circulation (destroyed). Just remember - If you intentionally deface, disfigure, mutilate or destroy an Aussie banknote, you could be looking at a maximum penalty of $5000 or two years in prison - or both!
Back when they used paper notes you could take burned money to the RBA and they would test and weigh the metallic security strips to determine the correct amount of currency. I believe the Bank of England used to do the same thing.
I don't know if this is Australia continuing an old tradition, but in ye olde times before abundant paper and coin money, it was normal enough to take your gold or silver specie coins and cut and clip them into lesser amounts. You could have a half, quarter, eighth of a dollar by literally cutting the coin into fractions.
The Peseta and the US dollar did this. A quarter dollar (25¢) is sometimes still referred to as two bits.
@@geoffroi-le-Hook I'm retired, and I can't remember the last time I heard or read the phrase "two bits" outside of historical references to its origin.
Old sports cheer:
Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar.
All for [my team], stand up and holler!
@@geoffroi-le-Hook And in my day, any multiple of 25 cents less than a dollar could be described as so many bits. Mass market paperback books cost six bits (yes I'm old). The US dollar was based on the Spanish dollar aka "Piece of Eight" worth 8 Spanish reales, and was the nearly universally accepted currency in Europe and the Americas for several centuries.
's where "pieces of eight" came from, yeah, cutting up the spanish dollar(worth 8 reales) into eight pieces.
ruble is theorized to be called that because it was cut weights which then became a currency, which i think is kinda the same as that?
My original thought, in Canada, you can buy special coins with odd denominations. I have an $8 coin and a $15 coin. These are legal tender, so maybe the Australian mint had similar and have the special notes.
Edit
Canada also makes large gold coins similar to what Tom was speaking about. One is considered, if I remember correctly, as the largest purest gold coin that's legal tender. I think they also done stuff with the Australian mint
Australia were the ones that originally created the polymer banknote and we licensed it out to most of the western world (CAD and EUR are the main ones foreigners would recognise). Matt Parker's done a video on the differences between the Commonwealth polymer notes and decided that .
The Perth Mint just do crazy stuff just cause they can. My parents have a $5 coin in their collection which I think is legal tender but you would never use it.
The $5 coin was actually not just a collectors item, as most of the special "technically currency bit dont spend it" coins were. It was a commemeration of some kind and occassionally can be found in the wild. Same as the special $1 and $2 coins they release every few years with new designs. We also usually have a octagonal 50cent piece, but had a small run of special round ones that often get confused for 20cent pieces if people dont look closely.
@@dwaynemartin2367yes you're right. When they first came out I got a few through change when spending money. Really rare now though.
Minor note: The Royal Australian Mint does put out some coins with odd denominations but the Mint doesn't make our notes - the Treasury is responsible for that. The fact they're actually separate is what led to separate conflicting decisions after the Queen died. The Queen was featured on all Australian coins (the Mint) and on the $5 note (the Treasury) but after she died while the Mint made the decision to update our coins to feature Charles III, the Treasury instead made the decision to remove the monarch from the notes and replace it with a tribute to the indigenous peoples.
We don't have special notes, just $5, $10, $20, $50 & $100.
This happened to me once, my mum tried to iron a $50 note flat to give as a gift but forgot to put a towel over it first and melted the corner it a little bit.
I took it to a bank (CBA) and they said to exchange it they would have to send it off for evaluation to see what it was now worth, I took it back and went to a local building society and got a clean swap without any hassles.
CBA likes to make everything as difficult as possible. If it's just ironed but still fully present we generall just take it at face value and send back to the RBA to be destroyed (customer doesn't have to waut for that), but if more than 20% was missing then they'd be right in that it's gotta be sent back and the RBA determines the value, so you don't get anything immediately. And that's not like torn in half and taped back together. It's gotta be oretty well munted to get sent off and if they think the damage looks intentional or anything like that, you get nothing for it anyway.
Both Canada and Australia have minted 1 million dollar coins out of solid gold. They're very large, Canada minted several that weigh over 200 pounds and are 20 inches wide. Australia, not to be outdone, minted a 1 tonne coin that's approximately 31 inches wide. The true value of both the Canadian and Australian coins far exceed their face value of 1 million CAD and 1 million AUD respectively.
If you can pick up the $1million coin, you get to keep it :P.
It was mostly a publicity stunt for their new (at the time) online bullion deposit/trading platform.
We have a slightly different, but much easier to apply rule in New Zealand. Bank notes have two copies of the serial number. A portion of the note with one serial number is worth half of the face value.
It does get slightly annoying when people present notes with torn corners, so that one of the serial numbers is slightly incomplete.
Since it's fairly common for New Zealanders to live in Australia, we sometimes have confused returnees trying to claim 3/4 of the value of torn notes.
Yeah ours doesn't care about whether the serial number is present or not, which is good because the serial numbers start at the ends and go along the edges, and edges and ends are the most likely to get damaged in my experience. It's pretty common so see chunks out of them but still have most of the note present, so it makes sense for us I guess. I do like the idea of having a serial number at either end so if it gets chopped in half each half is worth half the face value, but it would suck if the damage went through the serial number or something. I can kinda see both perspectives.
I think I've got this immediately because my home country does this as well. (Spoilers ahead)
The Bank of Korea has a slight different rule for torn banknotes: 100% of the face value for 75% or more, 50% of the face value for 40% or more, and nothing for less than that. It sounded so logical that I never thought about other possibilities!
*rounded up to $7 (6.66)
Still means you can make $1.
@@quintuscrinis8032 Except the note must be accidentally damaged (intentional damage is an offense), you must return all surviving parts of the note at the one time, you require identification to lodge a claim, and your bank won't actually give you the funds immediately - all they do is assist you in completing a claim form and forward it onto the Reserve Bank (Australia's central bank) for you. You may successfully claim a couple of thirds over time, but don't be surprised if the claim for the last third is refused (losing you $6 value of your original $20 note).
@@quintuscrinis8032 Risky. The policy is that the bank sends them away to the RBA (with ID), and if they decide that you didn't accidentally damage it, or receive it damaged unwittingly, you get nothing. banknotes.rba.gov.au/damaged-banknotes/claim-requirements/
In Germany you can exchange damaged banknotes for complete ones (at full value) as long as you have more than 50% of the banknote, so that you can't double up by cutting a note in half. I'm pretty sure they're going by weight if it's not clearly visible more than 50%, but I never had to use that myself, so I couldn't say for certain.
And if I remember correctly, the full serial number still must be readable. Which means that the other part of the note without the serial number is worthless.
Wonderful to see Bernadette. Thank you.
US current notes $5 and above are different colors and have the denomination in a large sans-serif font on the reverse ($5 purple, $10 brown, $20 green, $50 red, $100 blue). The $1 and the rarely circulated $2 are still green and grey.
First James Hoffmann, now Bernadette Banner? All my interests are appearing with Tom nowadays, I love it
6:14 Add "fee-stingy" to the list of phrases I've learned from the Lateral podcast: vanity overdial, spite-slicing, heat tourism, ....
It's not really a phrase. It's just being stingy about fees, which banks here most certainly are.
I'm an aussie but never heard of this before, you learn something new every day
Corrections:
Edit: includes spoilers ->
1. Banks can't trade cash for partial bank notes. Some banks and other financial institutions are ADIs of the Reserve Bank (RBA) and are capable of filling out claim forms to the RBA on their customers behalf. However, that customer will have to wait for the RBA to review their case and send the assessed value back.
2. The reason the banks can't, is the same reason the shop in the example shouldn't have taken a partial note. The RBA will refuse a claim if the partial notes were found to have been on-sold. i.e. Accepting a partial note in a trade is accepting effectively scrap paper. This is because the purpose of this claim is for personally accidentally damaging notes, or natural disasters, etc.
3. Therefore, if it is believed you have intentionally damaged the notes the claim will be refused, and if it is proveable you face potentially 2 years in prison for defacing currency (*cough* Tom).
Good thing Tom Scott's Monday videos is ending at the end of the year, thus he will have time to serve his Australian prison sentence 🤣
Above the 80% mark however, the note would be accepted by the bank and treated as face value. The bank would then remove it from circulation by returning it as a damaged note via it's Cash in Transit company.
I am reminded here, vaguely, of a Spider Robinson joke about a Maine 'hayshaker', who was asked by a city-slicker criminal if he had change for a (counterfeit) $18 bill.
The GBTC looked back at him at said "Ayuh. You want three $6's, or two $9's?"
Emily Graslie JUST returned to UA-cam, this is brilliant. Bernadette Banner, too! Great group here!
3:57 the UK changed to decimal currency on 15th February 1971. That would be 5 years and 1 day after Australia.
Canada USED to have this same 'proportional compensation for damaged banknotes' policy (I remember seeing a Royal Canadian Mint employee demonstrating for the interviewer by holding a banknote up to a grid template they would compare it to) but that documentary was EONS ago and I've found nothing official from the RCM on the subject - may have dropped the policy during any point with our myriad changes to our currency...
Australia uses the grid. banknotes.rba.gov.au/assets/pdf/grids-polymer.pdf Coincidentally Canada is one of 32 countries that use the polymer substrate made/developed in Australia to print their notes. Though Canada isn't one of the 19 other countries that also get them printed/finished in Australia.
This has been the case in the US for a long time, but you have to send the bill remnants to the mint, where experts will reconstruct each bill around the serial number and pay you by the fraction of the bill they can identify. It's most often used to recover value from bills partially burned.
Tom's facial expression when had just realised he'd just figured out the question was amazing
An Australian bank would not re-distribute fractions of bank notes. Once received, they are sent out to be destroyed.
For the Euro (or at least Germany) the federal bank replaced damaged notes for their face value, if there is still more than 50% of the note intact. So the "cutting in half" would have to thread a very fine line.... :-D
If you somehow managed to cut the note perfectly in half I guess you would get nothing back, since none of the halves would be *more* than 50%.
The cutoff is 51%.
For Swedish notes, you get the face amount if an area of at least ⅔ is intact and half of that if it's an area of at least ⅓
@@AltonV So in theory, in Sweden you could make a 50 % profit by cutting exactly one third off of the notes and returning both parts to the bank? I wonder if someone has actually tried that.
@@UngodlyFreak I reread that part and while the stipulation of at least ⅔ for the full value is true, to get half the area has to be *more* than ⅓
I believe we have a similar rule here in Canada. I think there is even a grid they use to aid in calculate the percentage of the bill remaining.
5:44 Dani says, "I don't think they barter", but she means, "I don't think they haggle". For some reason it has become a common mistake to use "barter" (meaning to exchange goods without money involved) instead of "haggle" (negotiate a higher or lower price).
Here in Hungary, if you have more than half of a note, you can exchange it for a whole in a bank or post office.
Same in the US.
Same in Canada.
For Swedish notes, you get the face amount if an area of at least ⅔ is intact and half of that if it's an area of at least ⅓
The US does have colour-coded banknotes now, though it's a lot subtler than most currencies.
So that’s why the new 100 dollar bill is so ugly😮
If it helps visually impaired people, fine I guess…
@@whyamiwastingmytimeonthis If you don't like them, I'll take yours.
@@teh-maxh I’ll let you have all of my negative 46 dollars.
On an unrelated note: SCREW CHASE and their overdraft and checking “service” fees
Tom's idea at the end is the playground rumour I remember from my childhood - I think that's probably also the hack Dani was trying to get as but didn't quite remember
The money jingle is iconic and a bop
In Canada, damaged banknotes with both instances of the serial number intact, are accepted at face value. They are taken out of circulation of course, but they are still exchanged for intact currency at full face value. If only 1 instance of the serial number is present, the fragment is accepted at half-value. If the fragment has only a partial serial number, it's worthless unless accompanied by the other piece of the same banknote, with both instances of the serial number legible & matching. Basically, the torn note can be reassembled, and accepted at face value.
As someone from Perth I can confirm the Perth mint has a giant gold coin! I would say Tom Scott should come and see it but I am not sure if the mint would let him film it.
Actually if I remember rightly, as I had a damanged 10$ from one of my Fares (Taxi Driver)
If LESS than 20% of a Note is missing, they are able to refund its full value.
If between 20>80% of the Note remaining, then it becomes its % value of the Note.
For example.
My 10$ note had only 12% of itself missing, thus I was able to recover its full value.
But if the 10$ had 40% of the note remaning, then I can get 4$ for it.
They have these little Grid Cheat Sheets which they place the note against, and then count the missing squares for the % missing...
Nope. That's an urban myth. I don't know if it used to be that way, but with modern notes, not at all. If you take in a damaged note, you'll get the full note value on condition that the note is easily identifiable as a genuine banknote with complete serial number. I traded in a damaged $20 note with a section missing at the bank only a couple of months ago, got the full value. As I said, it may have once been a thing, and might not have been properly rescinded, but no one does that anymore.
Canadian bank notes (and I'm pretty sure some others I've heard of) also have Braille on them for the visually impaired.
I feel like this is just an extension of the old rule where you could cut coins in half. Half a penny used to be exactly that before they actually made it a coin, but by that point it wasn't worth enough anyway and they got rid of it.
It *might* be, but deliberately cutting an Aussie banknote into pieces and trying to redeem each piece to its fraction of the face value, will earn you a hefty prison sentence for defacing the currency and trying to pass it off.
This would only work if you had fragments of different banknotes, each with their own serial number and it was obvious they weren't deliberately cut into pieces.
I knew within the first couple of seconds. I’m surprised the Australian didn’t know.
7:20
rounded up sounds liek a recipe for trickery
In Russia the banks will only replace your torn bill if it has more than 55% intact, thus ensuring you don't tear a note in halves or more and multiply its worth by replacing it for whole notes.
There are other rules as well, such as:
You CAN exchange a note that's torn neatly in half, provided you still have the second half of the note with you and both of them verifiably come from the same note;
If you have two halves of different notes, you can also exchange them for a whole note, provided that both halves are more than 50% of their original size (so if you have 51% of one note and 53% of another, you can hand them in at a bank and they will give you a new banknote of the same value);
You can also replace a note that is assembled from several bits and pieces of other notes of the same value, provided that at least 55% of it come from one note;
Some cashiers and ATMs won't accept banknotes that are torn at corners, old, burnt and dirty, so you can exchange those as well, as long as it can still be verified that the note is legitimate (serial number, watermark, etc)
Fascinating! In Austria (Europe) you can get the full value of a damaged bank note, if more than 50% is left of it
In Melbourne (Australia) my experience has been that if a note is slightly damaged, the bank teller will just exchange it. If its badly damaged, they give you 50% of its value. They're not really willing to waste time doing measurements or calculations, so you either get the full value or half.
We have this rule in nz as well, so i instantly knew what the catch would be
And I give you a 3rd method. In Hungary the national bank will replace your torn note if you have more than 50% of the note in how many pieces.
And now that I am thinking about it, I want to travel back in time tonthe committee session, where they have decided about that rule for the euro :)
I’ve heard that in practice many banks don’t accept damaged notes at all
As an Australian retail worker I would only accept intact notes.
Australian bank notes not only have different colours and sizes to help the visually impaired population but they actually also have braille now which is super cool
I can confirm regular Australian banks will take a note that is 80% complete no questions asked and they will give you full value for it.
Tom Scott British bank notes have raised dots on them in the top left hand corner, apart from the 5 pound note there's 2 on a £10, 3 on a £20 and 4 on a £50 note.
All Australian notes now also have a tactile feature, in the form raised dimples, for the vision impaired.
The “Pieces of 8” name for old spanish coins comes from the fact that they cane pre-scored and could be snapped into smaller denominations
Well this is unexpected thumbnail/video seeing Bernadette Banner with an Australian reference...
Emily Graslie is awesome!
WA person here, yes The Perth Mint does have a multi Million dollar coin (it's very pretty),
And thank you for getting "Out go the Shillings out go the Pence" stuck in my head 😂
I thought I really had it this time - the pounds/shillings/pence conversion was done at 2x, different to what happened in the UK with “new pence” - but nope, learned something about my own currency here
"wait I have the exact amount, no need for change"
takes out a ruler ,calculator and scissors
Having worked in a bank we didn't accept notes that were more than a quarter damaged. So this wouldn't have appiled.
Special mention for heroically resisting the compulsion to start this video: "Matilda waltzes into a bank.."
Neither I (nor the listener who sent this in) thought of that. Sliiightly regretting it.
It can also be done with 75% of a $20 note ($15) and two $5 notes that are 40% ( 2x2). Also with three $10 notes in various percentage combinations under the 80%.
In the US you need at least 3/4 of the bill to get a replacement.
It may have been said, but in determining value they lay the damaged note over a grid. Only squares fully covered by the note get proportionally reimbursed. If you tear a note in half and claim them in separate transactions then the value would not add up to 100% (unless you precisely tore the note on a grid line). Only partially covered squares are not reimbursed.
I would have guessed some out of print notes whose values are a little higher than the face values.
I’m Australian and have never heard of this. Wow!
USA used to (still does?) have a similar rule for old damaged currency (the example I remember was burnt notes) where it was a literal percentage to the nearest full cent
I had the 4 minute egg and 3 and 5 minute egg timers. My response was: Break the tops off the egg timers. Start them both at the same time. When the 3 minute timer runs out, stop the 5 minute timer. Throw out all the loose sand. Restart the 5 minute timer, then start the egg. When the 5 minute timer with 2 minutes of sand runs out, scoop the sand back in and use it again. Yes, this is slightly longer than 4 minutes but that makes up for starting the timer just before the egg. Got an award for original thinking for that answer. Also told not to break the timers.
I know that jingle because my mum sings it fairly regularly. She wasn't born yet in 1966. I know that jingle because the maternal grandfather who died almost three years before I was born used to sing it.
Aussie bank notes now have braille numbers for visually impaired. Because even though each denomination is a different size you have to have one of each to compare.
When you look at this from an underlying economic point of view and what the purpose of money actually is, this makes perfect sense, and im fairly certain most central banks with a stable currency have a similar rule. Money in cash form is simply a store of value, hence if you still have 80% of a $10 note, you still have something representing $8 worth of value in an economy; which means you essentially still have $8 of buying power.
On a sidenote, Aussie bank notes are actually perfect for the blind and visually impaired as they now all feature braille, and they're different sizes and shapes.
1966, Australia became the test case for decimalisation before Britain.
I knew this one straight away haha, I have no clue where I learned it from though, must've heard about it 8+ years ago I reckon.
I am surprised that it took them that long to get to the answer. The whole "you get a fraction back based on how much of the banknote is still left" was the first thing that came to mind here.
The only caveat is that you can't "have at it" with scissors and not expect to be charged with defacing currency and trying to pass it off, even it's "just" to exchange the damaged note at a bank. If the teller was being generous, they might just tell you "stop joking and go away".
@@dj1NM3 a bank teller does not have authority to do these exchanges. They can send it to the reserve bank on your behalf though. Ive done it before, I had about 85% of a $50 note and asked them to send it to the reserve bank for me, a few months later i got $50 in my account
IIRC, in the US so long as you have more than 50 percent of a bank note it is considered valid tender for the value on the bill. Though most people tend to just use packing tape to tape them back together.
We have same law here in czech republic. If you bring damaged note to the bank they will exchange it in the same fashion as the aussie bank :)
When I was a teller this wasn't the case, if the person was a customer of the bank if a customer had 60% of a note you can replace this. This was a number of years ago and I can't remember if you needed the serial.
"Cackles weakly" 😀
My old man actually worked in the soiled/damaged note section of the RBA, The amount of times they received soiled nappies full of notes is ridiculous!
The manager of the now closed local Aust Post business hub told me about the currency sanitising bin when she worked in NT, due to how some of the locals carried their money.
In New Zealand, any note that is still more than 2 thirds intact is worth the full face value, between 1 and 2 thirds only half, and less than a third is worthless. This system gives a more discrete scale to work with when halving the value of your notes :P
At the current exchange rate, the person has probably walked into the bank with 3 American $1 notes. 😂
I had no idea about this, too funny.
The current Australian bank notes also have raised bumps on them to help those who are sight impaired.
One bump for the $5, two bumps for a $10 etc.
For Euro notes you need a certain percentage of some characteristics. I don't remember the specifics anymore but they where above 50% so no money duplication glitch. You can only lose
Oh wow I almost new that one lol(that you need 80+ of a note to exchange it)
We had a similar rule in the Netherlands, but the serial number should be visible, so cutting a note into three parts would not work. I do not know what the rules are with the Euro.
The second i heard the question i said "international currency exchange" . I don't think anyone has ever specified government of issue otherwise.
In America you need more than half, otherwise you get nothing exchanging a torn bill. 25% ripped off of a $100 bill in America is worth nothing, while the remaining 75% (assuming it wasn't made into confetti) is worth $100.