| Comment | Legally they don't even have to take English notes. They're not Government currency, really, they're promissory notes printed by an individual bank.
It used to be every bank printed their own notes, and you'd have to take your notes to a branch of that bank to get them changed back to gold. Over time that got consolidated so now there's just the Bank of England in England and Clydesdale and BoS in Scotland. We all just agree that the notes are worth what they say, rather than going to the trouble of having them changed back into gold.
I understand that Scottish notes are counterfeited more often because people aren't as familiar with them so it's easier to pass off forgeries in England. More often than not that's why an English shop refuses a Scottish note, like how a lot of shops don't take £50 notes from any country. You see them so rarely and they're so often forgeries that it's not worth the risk of taking them. It's very rare you'll find someone who just doesn't understand what Scottish notes are (although they do exist, my girlfriend got barred from an offies in London once because of that). |
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