A little experiment using silver! Can you spend it!

After my little blog 2 days ago for @goldmatters about #whatintheworldsgoldmoney and how I said: "Ever tried going to your local supermarket and at the till offering to pay with silver??? You'd be laughed out the store...", well I thought I'd give it a try!!

So my plan- take a 1oz silver Britannia with a face value of £2 and try and buy everyday items and see what results I get.

The 2015 silver, 1oz britannia has a face value of £2 and is classed as legal tender. It is authorised by royal proclamation in accordance with the requirements laid down by the 1971 coinage act. TRY TELLING THAT TO THE TILL WORKER IN TESCOS

So off I trot to my local supermarket to pick up some milk for the weeks coffee fund in work.

STEP 1, PICK UP MILK.

STEP 2, GO PAY FOR MILK AT CHECK OUT.

First I tied to put the coin in the slot but it's too big and doesn't fit(I knew it was, I wanted to speak to a person). So I call the lovely assistant over to ask her for some help. I asked her why the machine won't take my money and showed her my coin. She had no idea what it was or that it was even made of silver. She smiled and said she would find someone straightaway to help me. In less than a minute(not bad customer service I thought), a deputy floor manager came to see me. He took one look at the coin and said that they would not accept it as it wasn't in their policy. He assumed it was a commemorative £5 coin(base metal) to which I pointed out it was solid silver and had a face value of £2 on it.

He was nice enough about it but said that it wasn't his rules and did I have any other way of paying?

STEP 3, GET OUT FAKE, PAPER MONEY.

So I paid using paper!! Yep that's right, one of the UK largest supermarket chains would rather accept paper with the number 20 on it and a picture of Elizabeth than a solid silver £2 coin.....

I spoke to the guy for about 5mins afterwards and explained what I was doing, but he didn't want to be photographed. He was taken back when I explained that to buy this silver coin would cost you about £20 and if they had accepted it and cashed it in for its silver content, which at the mo is £12ish, they would have made a profit of £10.91. He seemed genuinely interested in silver and I think It dawned on him that paper money, is in fact just paper.

Well I guess Tesco is off my list, where to next? Let me know where I should try.

Im hoping that some place will take my coin and know the true value of silver. Just goes to prove the majority of the world is oblivious and happy to follow along blindly and that if you want to spend silver in Tesco you need to use a #goldmoney credit card (hey @goldmatters how's that for a plug??)