WHEN MONEY IS A NUISANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 8

WHEN MONEY IS A NUISANCE

Signs of better times are the increase of the average savings bank deposit in Britain from £3l to £4l in five years; record half-year totals of marriages in both Victoria and New South Wales; and the interest of the Royal' Mint in a new threepenny piece. It is a fact that heavy coppers do wear a hole in the pocket. That had been forgotten during. the depression years, but with the return of prosperity waistcoat linings are again suffering, and the Royal Mint must have heard about it. Novelty attaches to the proposal to use a new metal—presumably a light one, as the proposed threepence will be "slightly larger than a sixpence." There is an old story of an aboriginal who changed a sovereign for a halfcrown because' it was and prettier, but it is unlikely that any such noble savage exists today, or that it would be worth anyone's while to exchange larger threepences for his little sixpences. The further suggestion that metal coin-, age could have ■.differentiating colours is interesting, for size differences alone do not prevent frequent confusion, as between florins and half-crowns. But the worry of making mistakes about coins is not as debilitating as the worry of having none to be mistaken about. It is to cure the latter trouble that Dr. Townsend, U.S.A., champions the velocity dollar, which is guaranteed not to wear a hole in any pocket. With velocity dollars and lightweight threepenny bits it is not unlikely that marriage records will henceforth be broken all over the world.