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Comment by forinti | Hacker News Reader

OTH, you'll see the coin much more often.

To put it mildly. For readers not in the UK: cashpoint machines do not give out £50 notes so if you want to get one you'll have to visit a bank and ask specially. Visiting a bank is rather difficult these days unless you are unemployed and live in a city centre and even then you might find it boarded up after the latest ram raid.

Visiting a bank for a 50 seems like a waste of £7

Not entirely true.

I was on a night out years ago for a friend's birthday, who, for whatever reason had chosen to have it at the Casino under the Empire cinema on Leicester square. The cashpoint there only gave out £50 notes. This is when I realised I couldn't afford this birthday party.

I expect that cash point was run by the casino and gave out 50s to encourage impulsive gamblers to bet even more money than they might otherwise plan to. On the other hand most cash points are owned by banks/supermarkets who would rather not have to deal with a wide circulation of £50 notes because they tend to be more likely to be forged (but maybe that’s just because they aren’t in common circulation) so require more time to check.

Just as a side note, plenty of banks and building societies are open on a Saturday.

In my town exactly one of the four bank branches are open on Saturday. Its the main one in the town center and then only until 12:30....

They are very commonly used by tourists to the UK who've exchanged cash.

A very small number of cashpoints in London dispense them.

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