Fancy that

I saw a programme on TV today about fake money. Apparently 1 in 40 £1 coins in the UK is a fake. Of course I immediately checked all mine (including the ones in the moneybox) and they are all real.

What you do is, you hold it with the Queen's head upright between your finger and thumb, then when you pivot it round, the picture on the other side should also be upright, with the words "one pound" in the same position as the Queen's neck. If it's on the skew, it's a fake.

If you don't have a note checker (and let's face it, outside shops, who does?) the best thing to look for in a banknote is the metal strip. It looks like a broken line to the naked eye, but if you hold it up to the light, the line is unbroken. Don't trust the watermark, as there are some good forgeries of that.

Just thought you'd like to know.