Do you have to be a small dreaming low sighted criminal to find this appealing?
What are the profit margins and start up costs? What is the market share and how do you infiltrate the legitimate market? Is it really worth it?
I am asking because I found a dodgy looking pound and I got to wondering.

We seem to be getting loads at work at the moment – reckon someone's putting them through the canteen.

Not if you make £2million of them….

Used to be a massive problem in fruit machines, worst when lead was cheap, I think people made a fortune.

Passed one off at Waitrose today. Cost me a pound to acquire it, mind…

There are about 46,000.000 counterfeit £1 Coins in circulation at any one time in the UK. Was on the TV the other night.

How the hell can they know that without counting them?

Cos "they" made them!!!

Any tips for how to make them? 🙂

When was the last time you saw a pound coin checked to see if it was genuine? Notes are checked all the time so much more likely to get caught.

I got one from the post office in Asda. It looked like a 5 year old had made it out of clay for a school project. I took it back and pointed it out to the cashier, she was offended (which was pointless) and thought it looked fine – and then replaced it, putting the old one back in the drawer.

The fakes are pretty easy to spot, dull and not very crisp, often the ridges round the outside are almost invisible where they have been pressed in.

Condoned behind the scenes by the BoE because it's cheaper to let the forgers add pound coins to the system than it is for them to make them themselves…

They make a different sound if you drop them onto a hard surface.

In the old days you could glue together two 5p pieces and spray paint them, they used to be called 'brass margarets'

the statistic quoted on TV the other night is that 1 in 6 pound coins are fake..

The faces are often out of vertical alignment with each other. Also, the little cross on the side ring is less crisp than it should be.

They cost about 20p each, last time I was offered a bunch…

I had one today. 2 £1 coins and a massive weight difference between them. Wasn't sure which was real though, didn't have time to look closely as I was handing one of them over to the spar woman…

I remember thinking "that's a 50% chance of being a crime" as I walked off. Spent the other in the same shop on the way home so….

In the old days you could glue together two 5p pieces and spray paint them, they used to be called 'brass margarets'

I love that. Is it true?

Yes completely true, at least in liverpool where I lived at the time.