21 tips to complete your Great One Pound Coin Race
The Race is on…
You’ve only got until 15 October to find all 24 circulating £1 coin designs. And after the new 12-sided £1 Coin is released on 28 March, it will get harder as banks start to replace the £1 coins they receive with the new 12-sided £1 coin.
So that’s why we’ve put our heads together to give you 21 Top Tips to complete your Great One Pound Coin Race in time.
- Check your change drawer / change pot
- Ask friends and family
- Go to the bank and change notes to £1 coins
- Swap with the Change Checker web app – changechecker.org
- Befriend the local corner shop / launderette owner and ask them for their £1 coins
- Arcade / bingo change machines
- Pay with a note and round up with loose change to maximise your £1 coin change
- Look for Facebook swap groups
- Raid your children’s piggy banks (and replace them with notes!)
- Look for abandoned supermarket trolleys
- Check down the back of the sofa
- Check old handbags
- Set up a lottery syndicate and collect the payments in round £1 coins
- Have a bake sale – everything a round £1 coin
- Offer to count up any collections and swap out the £1 coins for notes
- Car boot sale – everything is “One Round Pound”
- Pay car park charges in notes and receive the change in coins
- Check any tips your friends might be leaving at restaurants
- Always carry some £1 coins with you so you can swap any time you see a good one
- Check gym lockers
- Try to build a collection as a group – e.g. a school class – 30 Change Checkers are better than 1!
Win a Gold-plated Participant’s Medal
Do you have any more tips?
We’ll be giving away some special 24-Carat Gold Plated Great One Pound Coin Participant’s Medals to the best ideas. Simply comment below with your top tip.
How to enter the Great One Pound Coin Race
If you haven’t started your Great One Pound Coin Race yet, it’s not too late. Simply click here to enter today and you too could own a complete collection of £1 coins direct from your change before they’re gone for ever.
Raise money for local charities by doing raffles at school fairs, £1 a strip. Replace the pound coins for notes.
(I messaged on facebook directly because didnt see this page) but I had a brilliant idea (i think it is)
So heres my top tip:
Hosting a coinage night with your family and friends,its a great get together and you have the potential to swap coins with yoir friends amd family have a laugh amd good catch up too and help each other complete one anothers collection! Useful for all collevtion and also the #onepoundrace
If you do have moneyboxes change jars that you leave for ages saving for that speciak occasion or maybe a yearly one for christmas.Count out all the change not just your £ coins. Then take to bank,post office or friendly local shop and change it for £ coins. Those 1p 2p 5p 20p soon mount up so get counting and get it changed. ???
Also go to guernsey to get ya rare 2001 2003 local £1 coins guernsey plus duty free condor ferries
Wait outside the royal mint and wait for the Lorry G 4s full of old pound coins being returned to the mint and ask driver to Cheak all the coins lol
1 Open your change checker app
2 Do a print screen
3 share it by email/private message/print out/ Facebook post with friends and family!
Ask cashier if you can change in pounds instead of note I just got 4 new designs in one lot change only 10 to get now ?
I Work in retail and i ask cash office to swap notes for £1 change endless supply there that’s what I’m doing ?
Help at community fundraising events, and then check all the pound coins that are collected / raised
Change notes to £1 coins at the post office. They always have loads of 1 pounds and they even have them ready in plastic bags. 10 1 pounds bag. 20 1 pound bags. I don’t even know why ;D
2 great tips ive been using. Some car parks dont give u notes as change so if you pay with a twenty your bound to get loads of pound coins to check, also arcades that have notes to pound coins change machines are a good way to get loads of pounds aswell.
Ask the vicar if you can help to sort out the change in the collection plates at church, and offer a small donation in return. Win win for everyone
Go to Laundry Shops most owner are more then happy to give you £1 for notes.
Saves them going to the Bank…
That has done the job for me to have more the one Full Set £1 coins:)
Make cookies and cakes and sell a plate for £1 and give the ones you already have to charity.
Use public transport and pay with a note we’ve always got some change and more than happy to help, well most of us as we often collect coins of interest too, my collection is coming on well
I was on a recent fishing match and checked all the coins that was in the pools money before paying out to the winner, also I went into my local post office changed £10 into pound coins checked them before purchasing my items.
I ask at as many shops as possible to keep a look out for coins, I have every 50p coin every £1 coin except Cardiff And every £2 coin
Go to a bank get £250 in pound coin go throw them then take them to a bank that has coin counting machine get notes then change them back in to pound coin at another bank also I ask in asda etc if they have any I haven’t got in there till lol
Ask the bus drivers if they can change a £10 or £20 note 4 £1 coins.
ask pub landlord to keep an eye out for coins you are missing.
if you are male check your wife,s purse
………or if you are female check your partners pockets!
Have to say another idea I have been doing this week end is visiting pound land where I have actually managed to complete nearly all my £1 collection of the race from changing large amounts of coins for notes…. also thanks to my man Adam Thomas who was lucky enough to win a one pound race coin last week… so one ahead of me there 🙂 but so kindly bought 2 of the very last £1 coins from Westminster online which won’t be circulated to finish our collection, so thats another idea to complete the collection. What a good friend 🙂
get a dog and sit outside a bank and place your hat on the ground…… may be you will get loads of different rare coins
Firstly let me say what an amazing job you guys have done in bringing us coin collectors together and even creating new enthusiastic collectors too. I love the change checker app, I’ve been collecting and using it for some time now and have met lots of fantastic swappers through it. I have met plenty of new swappers in need of help starting up and have put together a number of tips to help them find coins and also swap. I am happy to share my tips and tricks so as to continue to help out, here they are:
Finding coins:
Try going to the bank and taking as much as you can afford out in £1’s or other denominations you need, search through them then take back the ones you don’t need? I have found some real gems this way. I went to 6 banks in one day at the beginning of one month. I took my entire wages out in 50p’s, £1’s and £2’s from the first bank searched through them, took back what I didn’t want and payed them into the second bank and repeated the process twice more! This process is great particularly when you have lots of banks in your city or have multiple bank accounts at various banks. It can be a great way to find some of the older and possibly rarer coins. The only downside is it can be quite time consuming.
The Post office can be quite good for new coins at times too. I get them to check for me whenever I post something. If I have more than one item to send I may just post each item at a different post office and get each one to check the coins for me! I don’t usually do that well from the post office myself but have spoken to alot of people who do and even say they have had bags full of new coins from their post offices. I guess it depends on how busy and friendly the staff are and probably the time you go in may factor in.
I always ask in every shop I go in whatever type of shop it is if they have any coins in there till and if they can check them for me. Most of the time people are great about it and will happily check for me. I have found customer service desks at big supermarkets can be good if they aren’t to busy. Another place to check that I haven’t explored much would be pubs some people tell me they do very well in their locals.
Around the time the Olympic 50p’s first started coming out which was during a time when I was getting lots of buses across different parts of the city almost each day for work I would pop into about 10-15 different betting shops weekly and get them to check and save coins for me. This proved very lucrative, most of them where fantastic, happy to help. Some workers even got competative with each other as to who could find me the most coins, I never even placed a bet! I must admit to having a bit of an addiction, I just can’t stop collecting the Olympic 50p’s, once I finish a collection I need to start another one!
Another good way to find coins is to get all your friends and family involved and get them hunting for you. Print them a wanted poster out with pictures of the coins you need on. Encourage them to get there friends and family to search for you too. Tell them to look everywhere and anywhere including in savings jars, there can be some cracking finds in those. Also try and make as many friends as you can with Retail and Bank jobs who can sit there all day long searching through change for you!
My last tip would be to pull off the greatest bank job of all time. Breaking into the bank and take all of their change to sort through, I wouldn’t recomend this one though!
Swapping Coins:
When swapping coins with people on Change Checker you will find most of the swappers are great and are happy to help and swap fairly. But be careful there are the odd few I have found that try to con you out of your coins and never actually send you their coins at all. Some just stop replying to you when you question them. Others may try to tell you they did send coins but forget to get the proof of postage and it must have got lost but usually then stop contact too. I usually find these people to seem a bit vague and take along time replying. They can sometimes be the ones who just send an address and say yes I will swap send me your address. Although it can occasionally be the person that seems very honest about things that might sting you, not just the people that seem a bit suspicious. It really is hard to tell sometimes that is why I usually follow a few rules I have set myself. Firstly I try to build a bit of rapour up with the person. I talk about the swap and their collection and coins in general, maybe ask questions like how they got into collecting and how long they have been collecting for. Once a swap has been agreed I find It is good to offer to send pics of the coins your offering and ask if they can send you pics of their coins too. Once you have agreed the swap and happy with the coins it is good to agree on packaging and postage arrangements. I usually send something like the message below to people:
I usually hide coins inside cardboard by cutting coin size holes in the cardboard that tightly fit the coins. I then secure coins into the cardboard holes by putting paper over them and tapeing it down to the cardboard. It’s not good for the coins to tape them down directly, this can leave a horrible sticky residue on them. This is all so you can’t feel them in the envelope once the cardboard is inside and the envelope has been sealed and taped up. It also helps the security of the coins to prevent them going missing on the journey. It has happened before to me where I have not recieved packages at all or empty and opened envelopes have turned up. If you could do something similar to make sure they are secure that would be great. I also like to post second class and obtain proof of postage from the post office. We can send a picture of this to each other once we have sent. I hope this will all be ok with you?
You can tailor this to how you like as may want to send first class or package slightly different. The main points here are to make sure the coins are secure and that proof of postage is obtained at the post office with the correct postage paid. After this has beed agreed it is just a case of swapping addresses. I usually take pics of the coins during packaging process and the envelope once it is all sealed up and then email that too. Usually if someone happily agrees to all this they will most likely be serious about swapping fairly.
I hope you all find these tips useful, I’m always happy to help.
I’ve recruited a network of people who work in Clubs & shops. Without them I’d be so much worse off for finding coins.
It depends on what value you place on your collection. If you are as keen as I am, I am going to ask my neighbours to look at all their pound coins against a list I will provide. I will reward any coins with a small gift.. Should I be fortunate enough to win a medal , then it will compliment my collection.
As I live in Gretna where people come to get married,I have found quite a few of the rarer £1/ £2/50p,coins in my change,absolutely love some of the designs. I think I have collected all the £1 coins,am now trying to collect the whole series of coins again,I am only two £1 coins from having two complete sets.So anywhere people congregate like weddings it seems to be the ideal place to collect most of them.
Take your bucket of 1p’s and 2p’s to your nearest post office or bank and get them changed into as many pound coins as possible.
sit in the pub and wait for the person to come and empty the fruit machine .I have got all the pound coins I need and most of the two pound coins this way.(plus a couple of nice pints !!)
I am only looking forca pound coin with Edinburgh on.
I have a spare Edinburgh one… You should find me through change checker app nickname Akronis. I am eight circulated coins away of completing my collection still…
Sorry! It was actually a Belfast one… My bad!
What coins are you needing?
put small change into drink/snack vending machines then press coin return some return in large coins eg 50p or £1 coins even got a Kew gardens 50p doing this
Get a £20 bag of one pound coins from your local POST OFFICE. As most of the bags that have either been paid in or received from the post office cash centre normally have a assorted set of coins in them.
Go to church every Sunday and root through the collection tray. Be careful that the vicar doesn’t see you pocketing any coins though! Please ensure that you put in more than you take out too.
???
I am currently sat in my local gala bingo, sat with my great one pound coin race printed sheet, and keep changing over my notes for £1.00 coins, I have a photo of the coins I have collected so far tonight… printed off extra sheets for my family so we can all do together and swop our coins.??
Carboot sales are always a good place to get £1 coins as everything is usually priced at a £1 ?
What I do is in my free time when I’m not working is work for a takeaway. I save all my change especially the £1 coins and sift through every single one. Atcyhe end of the night and week of tips I’ve saved I collect every single one I don’t have and add it to my collection…. also arcades are a great place to…. get your crispy notes ready to change that jackpot 😉
Using notes changing machines in bingo, arcades etc is a great idea.
Last week I took out £100 in notes from my bank account and changed it all into coins at my local bingo club. Went through the coins, founds some great ones and then changed the coins back to notes… Found 10 new pounds coins that I didnt have.)))
Go to your local Post Office and ask! I work in one and regularly am looking for coins for people and keep them to one side
Go to the bank and ask for £50 .00 in pound coins and check trough them .
Ask for loads of change at the bingo hall they always have pound coins
Check under your bed! ?
Taxi drivers always have loads of pound coins
I always do a swap with my sandwich lady at work for all her loose coins to see what different coins she has.
I also put Facebook status and enjoy the fact my friends and family help me with collecting all funny coins
In stead of withdrawing money from cash machines go in the bank and withdraw your money but ask it to be all £1 coins.
Ask your family to look out for them too??
When your landlord comes around to empty the coin meter,swap the £1coins you put in the metre with notes.
Surely you’d know that you hadn’t put any rare ones in the meter in the first place!
Keep a list of what you got and need on you at all times so you no what ones you can spend or exchange instead of holding onto them all
Offer to go on a snack run for work colleagues as long as they pay in round pounds ?. Or chat up the till staff in local supermarket!
Check old coats jeans anything that has pockets ☺☺
Use change dispensers in arcades, put in a £20 not and get 20 pound coins! Easy and no interaction with anyone!