I’m so happy that my question got accepted and used on the show

So if an Aussie is annoyed with a particular bank teller, they can poke a bunch of holes in their bank notes and force the teller to calculate the area of what's left. Brilliant!

"In come the dollars and in come the cents, to replace the pound, and the shillings, and the pence. Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix on the 14th February 1966."

Two corrections related to Tom's idea of cutting a $20 note into thirds: 1. 1/3 of $20 rounded up is $7, not $8. 2. RBA's policy is that the value is rounded to the nearest dollar, not rounding up. Not that it makes a difference for thirds, but you can't, for example, exchange 57% and 43% of a $10 note to get $11. Also, it is a crime to intentionally damage the notes, so you wouldn't want to do this repeatedly.

Shortly after this episode aired Australia's economy collapsed as everyone started making change by cutting the notes.

Emily Graslie, Bernadette Banner, and Tom Scott is not the crossover I ever expected to see.

“In come the dollars and in come the cents To replace the pounds and the shillings and the pence So be prepared when the coins begin to mix On the fourteenth of February 1966” Dad used to sing that one to me. He was an adult at the time (just barely). Weirdly, my mum (4 years younger than him) became an adult just one year after he did, because that part of the century had a LOT of legal updates happening…

In the question it said that Matilda was content with her transaction when she left, sooo...did she 'waltz' out of the bank?

My Canadian parents lived in Australia for a couple of years in the 1960's. They brought back a few little bits of Aussie culture with them, which added wonderful colour to my childhood. One of those was a folk music record (by Buster Noble) that included the song "Click go the Shears". I hadn't thought of that song for years, until watching this... thanks for that little reminder of my childhood!! 🙂

About 20 years ago my sister ironed a $5 note because it was creased. Contrary to whatever she thought biaxially-oriented polypropylene would do in response to contact heating, it shrivelled up like a fish in the sun. Fortunately it did not smell anything remotely as foul, though the queen had become the sultana. If I'd known about the note swapping rule at the time I'd have taken it in and demanded to exchange it for a tiny $50 note on the basis of condensed value.

Im gonna have to trust that this is true, but I've never heard of it because not only is it pretty difficult to tear an Australian banknote, if you somehow manage to rip it you'd just patch it with sticky tape and palm it off to a supermarket.

The weird thing about US dollars is that ADA is often championed as one of those things that US did exceptionally well. However, this somehow doesn’t translate to making notes more approachable for visually impaired people.

only one problem, defacing any currency in Australia is an offence, including cutting. So no you can’t just cut em up! But yes I've had bank note exchanged no problem. plus theres a serial number on both corners and brail including all sorts of security measures on these polymer notes. I think we licence the tech to a bunch of different countries like the EU. If your notes are plasticy thank an Aussie! CSIRO probably

2:30 Australian notes also have a tactile part denoting the amount, with 1 dot for $5, 2 for $10 and so on.

7:20 I love everyone's reaction here: Emily and Tom's amazement, contrasted with Dani's utter horror :D

In America, torn bills (banknotes for those of you in the Commonwealth) can be redeemed for face value iff (mathematical term for "if and only if") they are more than 50% of the bill and contain the serial number. And the American slang term "two bits" meaning a Quarter (our 25¢ coin) refers back to colonial times when the Spanish Dollar was legal tender and could be cut into as many as eight pieces, or "bits," giving them the common name "pieces of eight."

I have some old Australian coins lying around in my childhood coin collection. The demoninations are ridiculous, there's a threepence coin and a six pence coin, a shilling is worth 1/20th of a pound, a florin coin is worth two shillings... It's complete madness. And of course there's the halfpenny coin.

Right from the start, I was thinking of decimalization (if I'd been on the podcast, my first question would have been "Did this happen in 1966"). That jingle will be forever in our brains - even those of us born after decimal currency was well and truly established - because it was just so brilliantly done.

I don't know if this is Australia continuing an old tradition, but in ye olde times before abundant paper and coin money, it was normal enough to take your gold or silver specie coins and cut and clip them into lesser amounts. You could have a half, quarter, eighth of a dollar by literally cutting the coin into fractions.

My original thought, in Canada, you can buy special coins with odd denominations. I have an $8 coin and a $15 coin. These are legal tender, so maybe the Australian mint had similar and have the special notes. Edit Canada also makes large gold coins similar to what Tom was speaking about. One is considered, if I remember correctly, as the largest purest gold coin that's legal tender. I think they also done stuff with the Australian mint

This happened to me once, my mum tried to iron a $50 note flat to give as a gift but forgot to put a towel over it first and melted the corner it a little bit. I took it to a bank (CBA) and they said to exchange it they would have to send it off for evaluation to see what it was now worth, I took it back and went to a local building society and got a clean swap without any hassles.

You are referring to the RBA note grid and although this is technically correct, in my 35+ years of working in the banking industry I have never been asked to do a part refund. We have of course replaced damaged notes for new ones and exchanged the old paper notes for the new polymer notes. I even remember when the first $10 notes had faulty holograms on them that pealed off. Old, damaged or defaced notes are set aside and sent to the RBA to be taken out of circulation (destroyed). Just remember - If you intentionally deface, disfigure, mutilate or destroy an Aussie banknote, you could be looking at a maximum penalty of $5000 or two years in prison - or both!

Back when they used paper notes you could take burned money to the RBA and they would test and weigh the metallic security strips to determine the correct amount of currency. I believe the Bank of England used to do the same thing.

Both Canada and Australia have minted 1 million dollar coins out of solid gold. They're very large, Canada minted several that weigh over 200 pounds and are 20 inches wide. Australia, not to be outdone, minted a 1 tonne coin that's approximately 31 inches wide. The true value of both the Canadian and Australian coins far exceed their face value of 1 million CAD and 1 million AUD respectively.

We have a slightly different, but much easier to apply rule in New Zealand. Bank notes have two copies of the serial number. A portion of the note with one serial number is worth half of the face value. It does get slightly annoying when people present notes with torn corners, so that one of the serial numbers is slightly incomplete. Since it's fairly common for New Zealanders to live in Australia, we sometimes have confused returnees trying to claim 3/4 of the value of torn notes.

*rounded up to $7 (6.66)

In Germany you can exchange damaged banknotes for complete ones (at full value) as long as you have more than 50% of the banknote, so that you can't double up by cutting a note in half. I'm pretty sure they're going by weight if it's not clearly visible more than 50%, but I never had to use that myself, so I couldn't say for certain.

I think I've got this immediately because my home country does this as well. (Spoilers ahead) The Bank of Korea has a slight different rule for torn banknotes: 100% of the face value for 75% or more, 50% of the face value for 40% or more, and nothing for less than that. It sounded so logical that I never thought about other possibilities!

Corrections: Edit: includes spoilers -> 1. Banks can't trade cash for partial bank notes. Some banks and other financial institutions are ADIs of the Reserve Bank (RBA) and are capable of filling out claim forms to the RBA on their customers behalf. However, that customer will have to wait for the RBA to review their case and send the assessed value back. 2. The reason the banks can't, is the same reason the shop in the example shouldn't have taken a partial note. The RBA will refuse a claim if the partial notes were found to have been on-sold. i.e. Accepting a partial note in a trade is accepting effectively scrap paper. This is because the purpose of this claim is for personally accidentally damaging notes, or natural disasters, etc. 3. Therefore, if it is believed you have intentionally damaged the notes the claim will be refused, and if it is proveable you face potentially 2 years in prison for defacing currency (*cough* Tom).

US current notes $5 and above are different colors and have the denomination in a large sans-serif font on the reverse ($5 purple, $10 brown, $20 green, $50 red, $100 blue). The $1 and the rarely circulated $2 are still green and grey.

For the Euro (or at least Germany) the federal bank replaced damaged notes for their face value, if there is still more than 50% of the note intact. So the "cutting in half" would have to thread a very fine line.... :-D

Here in Hungary, if you have more than half of a note, you can exchange it for a whole in a bank or post office.

Wonderful to see Bernadette. Thank you.

6:14 Add "fee-stingy" to the list of phrases I've learned from the Lateral podcast: vanity overdial, spite-slicing, heat tourism, ....

First James Hoffmann, now Bernadette Banner? All my interests are appearing with Tom nowadays, I love it

Canada USED to have this same 'proportional compensation for damaged banknotes' policy (I remember seeing a Royal Canadian Mint employee demonstrating for the interviewer by holding a banknote up to a grid template they would compare it to) but that documentary was EONS ago and I've found nothing official from the RCM on the subject - may have dropped the policy during any point with our myriad changes to our currency...

I feel like this is just an extension of the old rule where you could cut coins in half. Half a penny used to be exactly that before they actually made it a coin, but by that point it wasn't worth enough anyway and they got rid of it.

This has been the case in the US for a long time, but you have to send the bill remnants to the mint, where experts will reconstruct each bill around the serial number and pay you by the fraction of the bill they can identify. It's most often used to recover value from bills partially burned.

The US does have colour-coded banknotes now, though it's a lot subtler than most currencies.

I'm an aussie but never heard of this before, you learn something new every day

Emily Graslie JUST returned to KZfaq, this is brilliant. Bernadette Banner, too! Great group here!

An Australian bank would not re-distribute fractions of bank notes. Once received, they are sent out to be destroyed.

5:44 Dani says, "I don't think they barter", but she means, "I don't think they haggle". For some reason it has become a common mistake to use "barter" (meaning to exchange goods without money involved) instead of "haggle" (negotiate a higher or lower price).

Tom's facial expression when had just realised he'd just figured out the question was amazing

I can confirm regular Australian banks will take a note that is 80% complete no questions asked and they will give you full value for it.

Special mention for heroically resisting the compulsion to start this video: "Matilda waltzes into a bank.."

I am reminded here, vaguely, of a Spider Robinson joke about a Maine 'hayshaker', who was asked by a city-slicker criminal if he had change for a (counterfeit) $18 bill. The GBTC looked back at him at said "Ayuh. You want three $6's, or two $9's?"

3:57 the UK changed to decimal currency on 15th February 1971. That would be 5 years and 1 day after Australia.

I believe we have a similar rule here in Canada. I think there is even a grid they use to aid in calculate the percentage of the bill remaining.

Australian bank notes not only have different colours and sizes to help the visually impaired population but they actually also have braille now which is super cool

I am surprised that it took them that long to get to the answer. The whole "you get a fraction back based on how much of the banknote is still left" was the first thing that came to mind here.

In Canada, damaged banknotes with both instances of the serial number intact, are accepted at face value. They are taken out of circulation of course, but they are still exchanged for intact currency at full face value. If only 1 instance of the serial number is present, the fragment is accepted at half-value. If the fragment has only a partial serial number, it's worthless unless accompanied by the other piece of the same banknote, with both instances of the serial number legible & matching. Basically, the torn note can be reassembled, and accepted at face value.

In Melbourne (Australia) my experience has been that if a note is slightly damaged, the bank teller will just exchange it. If its badly damaged, they give you 50% of its value. They're not really willing to waste time doing measurements or calculations, so you either get the full value or half.

Nope. That's an urban myth. I don't know if it used to be that way, but with modern notes, not at all. If you take in a damaged note, you'll get the full note value on condition that the note is easily identifiable as a genuine banknote with complete serial number. I traded in a damaged $20 note with a section missing at the bank only a couple of months ago, got the full value. As I said, it may have once been a thing, and might not have been properly rescinded, but no one does that anymore.

Well this is unexpected thumbnail/video seeing Bernadette Banner with an Australian reference...

Tom's idea at the end is the playground rumour I remember from my childhood - I think that's probably also the hack Dani was trying to get as but didn't quite remember

In Russia the banks will only replace your torn bill if it has more than 55% intact, thus ensuring you don't tear a note in halves or more and multiply its worth by replacing it for whole notes. There are other rules as well, such as: You CAN exchange a note that's torn neatly in half, provided you still have the second half of the note with you and both of them verifiably come from the same note; If you have two halves of different notes, you can also exchange them for a whole note, provided that both halves are more than 50% of their original size (so if you have 51% of one note and 53% of another, you can hand them in at a bank and they will give you a new banknote of the same value); You can also replace a note that is assembled from several bits and pieces of other notes of the same value, provided that at least 55% of it come from one note; Some cashiers and ATMs won't accept banknotes that are torn at corners, old, burnt and dirty, so you can exchange those as well, as long as it can still be verified that the note is legitimate (serial number, watermark, etc)

Actually if I remember rightly, as I had a damanged 10$ from one of my Fares (Taxi Driver) If LESS than 20% of a Note is missing, they are able to refund its full value. If between 20>80% of the Note remaining, then it becomes its % value of the Note. For example. My 10$ note had only 12% of itself missing, thus I was able to recover its full value. But if the 10$ had 40% of the note remaning, then I can get 4$ for it. They have these little Grid Cheat Sheets which they place the note against, and then count the missing squares for the % missing...

I had the 4 minute egg and 3 and 5 minute egg timers. My response was: Break the tops off the egg timers. Start them both at the same time. When the 3 minute timer runs out, stop the 5 minute timer. Throw out all the loose sand. Restart the 5 minute timer, then start the egg. When the 5 minute timer with 2 minutes of sand runs out, scoop the sand back in and use it again. Yes, this is slightly longer than 4 minutes but that makes up for starting the timer just before the egg. Got an award for original thinking for that answer. Also told not to break the timers.

First time i visited a Chinese bank with my wife, i saw a sign about how the bank will exchange notes eaten by mice for new notes.

The money jingle is iconic and a bop

The “Pieces of 8” name for old spanish coins comes from the fact that they cane pre-scored and could be snapped into smaller denominations

Emily Graslie is awesome!

As someone from Perth I can confirm the Perth mint has a giant gold coin! I would say Tom Scott should come and see it but I am not sure if the mint would let him film it.

Fascinating! In Austria (Europe) you can get the full value of a damaged bank note, if more than 50% is left of it

And I give you a 3rd method. In Hungary the national bank will replace your torn note if you have more than 50% of the note in how many pieces. And now that I am thinking about it, I want to travel back in time tonthe committee session, where they have decided about that rule for the euro :)

7:20 rounded up sounds liek a recipe for trickery

It may have been said, but in determining value they lay the damaged note over a grid. Only squares fully covered by the note get proportionally reimbursed. If you tear a note in half and claim them in separate transactions then the value would not add up to 100% (unless you precisely tore the note on a grid line). Only partially covered squares are not reimbursed.

In the US you need at least 3/4 of the bill to get a replacement.

I’ve heard that in practice many banks don’t accept damaged notes at all

As an Australian retail worker I would only accept intact notes.

When you look at this from an underlying economic point of view and what the purpose of money actually is, this makes perfect sense, and im fairly certain most central banks with a stable currency have a similar rule. Money in cash form is simply a store of value, hence if you still have 80% of a $10 note, you still have something representing $8 worth of value in an economy; which means you essentially still have $8 of buying power. On a sidenote, Aussie bank notes are actually perfect for the blind and visually impaired as they now all feature braille, and they're different sizes and shapes.

I thought I really had it this time - the pounds/shillings/pence conversion was done at 2x, different to what happened in the UK with “new pence” - but nope, learned something about my own currency here

WA person here, yes The Perth Mint does have a multi Million dollar coin (it's very pretty), And thank you for getting "Out go the Shillings out go the Pence" stuck in my head 😂

"wait I have the exact amount, no need for change" takes out a ruler ,calculator and scissors

We have this rule in nz as well, so i instantly knew what the catch would be

1966, Australia became the test case for decimalisation before Britain.

Canadian bank notes (and I'm pretty sure some others I've heard of) also have Braille on them for the visually impaired.

This is technically somewhat correct if you were to figure out how to go to Reserve Bank directly, the premise that she could simply walk into a place and have her damaged notes converted immediately into valid currency is not entirely true. If she brought her notes in to the bank packaged up in an envelope ready to go, as per the RBA's directions on their website, her notes would be sent by the bank to the RBA and they work out how much the notes are worth and that amount gets credited to the customer's account. The bank can make anguess at how kuch of the note is left using a "grid", but the RBA has the final call on the value si nothing is paid out until their decision comes back. It usually takes a few weeks turn around before we hear back foem the RBA after sending. So, not a same day turnaround as implied in the story. However, if she walked in a just tried to hand the notes in over the counter, then only the notes over 80% undamaged would be accepted and they would be accepted at the face value. The RBA rules state that there is no obligation to accept damaged (less than 80% present) notes, so less that 80% and it doesn't get accepted over the counter, so at best if it's a bank teller they might assist the customer to send their note away to the RBA as per the above scenario. So, no partial amounts in this situation of person at the bank or merchant changing over cash. There are also a whole host of reasons the RBA can decline someone's claim, so there's no guarantee the customer ends up with anything. I kinda guessed at the start where they were going eith this question, but, although it looks fun on paper, in the context of the real world this scenario just doesn't quite stack up without some changes. Also, the $10 with 80% still present is still worth $10, so for this to work even in the not-real-life setting, she needs to have 79% or less so it doesn't just get accepted at face vale.

It can also be done with 75% of a $20 note ($15) and two $5 notes that are 40% ( 2x2). Also with three $10 notes in various percentage combinations under the 80%.

Great Panel 👍

Having worked in a bank we didn't accept notes that were more than a quarter damaged. So this wouldn't have appiled.

I knew within the first couple of seconds. I’m surprised the Australian didn’t know.

Aussie bank notes now have braille numbers for visually impaired. Because even though each denomination is a different size you have to have one of each to compare.

At the current exchange rate, the person has probably walked into the bank with 3 American $1 notes. 😂

Just for the sake of sating Emily's curiosity, Click Goes The Shears use the exact same music of Ring The Bell, Watchman which Americans may be more familiar with... but no one was getting sued for plagiarism in the 1870s, so it kind of just slipped through. The latter was of course composed first, and an aspiring Australian composer just.. borrowed... the tune, for their own song. Also, the precise origins and author of the song Click Goes The Shears, is a matter of debate, and no universally accepted answer is known even today. So our little ditty for decimalization was to the tune of Ring The Bell Watchman. As a side note, the song Click Goes The Shears, was, maybe until the 90s, among the songs in the singing book issued in just about every primary (elementary) school in Australia, so was, though I doubt it the case now, one of the most widely known and recognizable old bush songs in the country. That is why it was also used when Australia introduced Roundabouts on our roads in the early 80s. Basically... if the Commonwealth Government ever needs jingle to reinforce some new change in how things are done, relating to something essential, like roads and traffic, or currency.. they use an almost 150 year old bush ditty, plagiarized from an even older revolutionist song from America. I guess that might also explain at least a little why we have a weird money rule like the solution here to this question. We're not known for our quirkiness as a country, in general, but when we DO do quirky, we go big. So we can be down for something like this.

got this one immediately

All Australian notes now also have a tactile feature, in the form raised dimples, for the vision impaired.

Tom Scott British bank notes have raised dots on them in the top left hand corner, apart from the 5 pound note there's 2 on a £10, 3 on a £20 and 4 on a £50 note.

I know that jingle because my mum sings it fairly regularly. She wasn't born yet in 1966. I know that jingle because the maternal grandfather who died almost three years before I was born used to sing it.

I’m Australian and have never heard of this. Wow!

"Cackles weakly" 😀

I would have guessed some out of print notes whose values are a little higher than the face values.

"It is an offence under the Crimes (Currency) Act 1981 to intentionally deface, disfigure, mutilate or destroy Australian banknotes without the consent of the Treasurer or certain staff of the Reserve Bank or The Treasury authorised by the Treasurer to give consent."

My guess is there's a 5% fee for depositing a damaged bank note, so 2 damaged 5s and 1 damaged 10 would have a $1 fee, you'd get $19 back. Or it's a 10% fee per damaged bill, and they deposited 2 intact 5s, and 1 damaged 10. Edit: Alright that's just wild, without the serial number bills could easily be laundered.

When I was a teller this wasn't the case, if the person was a customer of the bank if a customer had 60% of a note you can replace this. This was a number of years ago and I can't remember if you needed the serial.

The second i heard the question i said "international currency exchange" . I don't think anyone has ever specified government of issue otherwise. In America you need more than half, otherwise you get nothing exchanging a torn bill. 25% ripped off of a $100 bill in America is worth nothing, while the remaining 75% (assuming it wasn't made into confetti) is worth $100.

Bernadette Banner is always a joy

My old man actually worked in the soiled/damaged note section of the RBA, The amount of times they received soiled nappies full of notes is ridiculous!

I knew this one straight away haha, I have no clue where I learned it from though, must've heard about it 8+ years ago I reckon.