Overseas Briefing

Author: Tom Drescher

NOTTINGHAM - Reach into your pocket. You probably have some loose change floating around. Take it out, but don't look at it yet. Just estimate. What does it feel like? A few quarters and nickels? $0.63? $0.29? $1.05? You're probably not too far off. Now it's my turn. Let's see...I'd guess about $1.50, certainly no more than $2.00. Surprise: Despite the similar weight, I'm actually holding 6.40 British pounds sterling. According to bbc.co.uk, the current exchange rate for January 20, 2005, is £1 to $1.8676 - employ a bit of paper-and-pencil computation and the already-inflated value of my handful of currency balloons to an astonishing $11.95. This is the phenomenon known as "magic change."

To the best of my knowledge, the phrase "magic change" was coined by a friend of mine in Paris, and I first heard it used during a visit to France's vibrant capital city in October. On my first night of debauchery Paris-style I was introduced to the compulsory late-night ritual of purchasing and devouring a crepe at 2 a.m. As I waited to order my own £3.50 banana-and-Nutella-smothered snack, a fellow Midd-kid in line ahead of me announced boisterously that she would be paying with "magic change." I thought about this for a moment, checked my empty wallet, withdrew a handful of Euro change from my pocket, and realized that I too would be making this exchange exclusively with coins.

Ask your grandparents, and they'll rattle off a list of items they could buy with a dime when they were your age. It's true: pennies, nickels and dimes have become nearly obsolete in recent years. At home, when I break a $10 or $20 bill, I toss the change in my pocket temporarily, and it usually ends up scattered around my room in drawers or under furniture. Every few weeks I make an effort to remedy this change dispersion, and I can usually collect enough to feed the laundry machines and clean my clothes. In England, two weeks of hoarded change is enough to buy a new wardrobe.

Adjusting to the idea of magic change can be a challenge for Americans. It's often very deceiving: on one occasion, I fed my £20 note into an Underground ticket machine at St. John's Wood Station in London and was left with a Day Travelcard, valued at £4.30, a hefty handful of £1 coins and the misleading feeling that I'd just spent almost $40. On the other hand, paying with coins was, at least in my American mind, not really paying at all, and early in the semester I could toss loose change to the bartender at my residence hall pub all night with nary a thought for my finances.

Increasingly unfavorable exchange rates in recent months have made British and European coinage even more magical. I've had to constantly remind myself, for the sake of my poor, emaciated bank account, not to recklessly discard those miniature metallic portraits of Her Majesty the Queen. Dealing with magic change has become easier of late, and I have come to understand and admire the convenience factor of utilizing change for significant transactions, but I admit I'm looking forward to getting reacquainted with President Washington's profile and filling my wallet with crisp paper money and my pocket with worthless change.