You could argue that however that story is over 3 years old. Also scottish money is technically more legal, an english pound is worth a pound, a scottish pound is a pound sterling, a measurement of quality any uk person should know that sterling silver has more value than almost all contimental

Well, the age of the story isn't important as it hasn't changed, nor does the value of the currency (though in all honesty I'm not sure what you're getting at there, Sterling Silver is separate to Pounds Sterling). Legal Tender in England is only produced by the Bank of England. There's no 'more legal' about it, Scottish banknotes are not legal tender in the UK.

That of course doesn't mean that they're 'illegal', merely that shopkeepers are under no legal obligation to accept them as payment.

Sterling doesn't refer to silver in this case :P The british pound sterling is a 1troypound lump of gold :P The real pound coins (which do exist still due to a law which requires the BoE to have some on hand) are worth about 2-4grand each :P

It's just the scottish being arrogant and making there own currency because they hate the english so much.

*puts in monicle


For a time (not recently) in scotland you could take your pound to a back and exchange it for silver.

However at that time it wasnt a smart thing to do as silver wasnt worth much.

We're talking a long time ago (late 17th century iirc)

Where as english money you couldnt do that.

On a sidenote though i was in england last year and tried using a scottish note, the bar called the police claiming it was very badly forged, the english police see it as money cause they pressed charges of wasting police time on the bar.

No you just had to go to the bank of england to do that same as for scottish notes you have to go to the bank that authorised them

Ahh, I see. I didn't know that! I presume it had something to do with the reform when the Kingdom of Great Britain was created.

I never knew England did it too

Gremmi is right, only Bank of England notes are legal tender in England and Wales. Scottish notes aren't legal tender anywhere (in that they can be refused in settlement of a debt), but you'd have to be stupid not to accept them.

Apparently shops can refuse any payment, regardless of whether it's legal tender. However payment of a bill after a meal is considered settlement of a debt, and so BoE notes can't be refused in that situation.

Apparently 5p and 10p coins are legal tender up to a value of £5 and 20p coins up to a value of £10. You could pay a £20 bill with 100x5p, 50x10p and 50x20p if you wanted to annoy someone.

Yeah, the only difference is that the Bank of England isn't a normal bank. The various issuing banks in Scotland are normal banks and therefore much easier to walk into to demand that they pay the bearer their precious metal. :P

That article is misleading; it's actually referring to the law of contract accross the United Kingdom, which allows people not to engage in a transaction if they don't want to. Any notes, regardless of whether they're English, Scottish or Northern Irish, can be refused.