£1 coins out after garage is stung with fakes

Wednesday 22nd October 2008, 2:29PM BST.

VALE GARAGE is refusing £1 coins after complaining of receiving fakes. Eddie Sharpe (pictured), who works at the service station, said he began to notice the dodgy coins about a month ago.

‘They look a lot like a £1 coin really, but if you look closely there are differences and all you can do is warn people to look out for them,’ he said.

He took the coins to a bank, he said, and spoke to police.

‘The first thing I noticed was that if you flip a real one, the emblem is aligned with the image of the Queen’s head – the two are straight. But if you turn a fake, they are often at different angles,’ he said.

‘The writing on the edge is also not as clear as it should be and if you scratch the surface with another coin, you can see the surface is thin and underneath it is silver-coloured.’