When Mr. Wells goes to the currency exchange, he is offered an exchange of $25 for his old British currency. In 1968 Briatin switched over from the old currency (Crown, Sovereign, Shilling, Threepence, Sixpence, &c.) to the current decimal currency. I'm not completly sure of the terms of this act, but I'm not actually sure if the old currency would retain monetary value. I suspect that it went the way of the Deutsche Mark and the Franc.
shareAny Bank of England banknote can be presented at the Bank of England and be exchanged for current legal tender - as I've done myself, though not for time travelling purposes. The Bank of England actually has branches in most major British cities -although it isn't a high street bank in the sense most of use would understand it. Exchanging it at banks overseas, however, is a different matter.
And we switched from LSD (as the old money system was called - L for pounds (livres), S for shillings, D for pence) to decimal in 1971.
"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."
Ok, thanks for the information.
I got a few different dates from different sources regarding when the switch was made. I see now that it was in 1967 that Parliment passed the Decimal Currency Act, but it wasn't until 71 that the switch actually took place.
I was born just too late to know pre-decimal currency but we were using pre-decimal coins up til the mid 80s when they finally left circulation - so lots of shilling and 2-shilling (florin) pieces around when I was a child as they were the same size and shape as the new 5 pence and 10 pence coins respectively.
"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."
Yeah. On my first trip to London I remember noticing that some of the 1p pieces had "New Penny" written on the back, while most of the others just said "One Penny." I deduced that this had to do with the switchover, even though they seemed too recent for that.
shareExchanging it at banks overseas, however, is a different matter.
"Would an American bank in the late 1970s (or today for that matter) actually agree to exchange pre-decimal British currency?"
At a large, port-of-entry city like San Francisco, probably. It would have been legal currency in the U.K. just eight years prior, and normally there is a period of time for foreign banks etc. to trade it in. Certain pre-decimal coins stayed around in the U.K. even longer than 1979, and banknotes, since they are in 'pound' denominations, should still be valid, even today (at banks, but not shops).
I would think that Wells's banknotes would have looked too new in 1979. Somebody would have suspected counterfeiting.
"though not for time travelling purposes"
I'm glad you cleared that up, hehe ;)
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I think Herbert should have just done what the one guy recommended : go to a coin dealer to get more money out of it. I'm sure there were plenty in the days the film was made, before there was ebay.
shareI like the way Wells does a double take when he sees how few dollars he's gotten in exchange. The pound in 1979 was way down from 1893 vs. the dollar.
shareI don't know about paper money but coins do seem to keep circulating unless pulled out of circulation. Right now I've got a penny from 1978 and a quarter from 1967 both of which I got just recently as change from purchases. As for the theory that someone would suspect counterfeit I could see someone being able to believe that someone had salted away some money for a rainy day and it was just recently found by someone and turned in for new currency. I mean why make a counterfeit of an out of circulation currency? For example after Iraq fell Saddam's currency lost its value since the country was no longer under his leadership so why would someone make printings of bills from his regime? Someone did try to break into a bank as I recall after the fall and many of the bills were burned in the explosion, not that it made much difference because they no longer had value. So making a copy of old British currency to pass off as real wouldn't make sense. Also you get the idea that a lot of banks were still accepting the old bills (at least in the area of San Francisco) because when H.G. comments on the lower value the teller says "Really, it's the same everywhere." Of course that could just be about the exchange rate but since they accept the old bills (which might look old even if they weren't from H.G.'s point of view) you have to wonder. And bills don't have to be old to look it either. I've seen bills printed within the last year that look old and I've seen bills that are several yrs old that look newly minted. It depends on how much they circulate.
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