It is ESTIMATED that there are some £20—£30 millions worth of foreign coins lying around this country. The banks are not interested, neither are the foreign exchange bureaux, in anything other than notes.

In 1977 it is proposed to convert as many of these foreign coins as possiblefor the funds of the lifeboat service. The main difficulty has been to handle and sort foreign coin, owing to its bulk and weight. However, we have now found an outlet which will give us a fair rate of exchange provided the coins are all sorted into their countries of origin.

We are preparing packs of blank money envelopes, together with blocks of labels, each one marking a major foreign currency. These will be available through our district offices and if our supporters will label their foreign change appropriately and give it to their local RNLI branch, guild or organising secretary as and when a convenient opportunity occurs it is hoped that these coins will eventually end up at Poole, ready for encashment. It may take some time to fill up this pipeline initially but we believe that the results will be well worthwhile.

One of these labels will be marked 'miscellaneous' for those unidentifiable odd coins, and who knows what treasure may be discovered!.