TNAG-0455-FCO40-520-Minting-of-new-coins-for-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 66

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costs offsetting economies in labour costs. The Kowloon Motor Bus Co., (1933) Ltd. is planning the installation of a new automatic coin collection system in their buses as well as an automatic extraction device. The manufacturers of the equipment have advised the Company that if the system is to function properly all coins must be round and fairly uniform. The Company indicated that they would advise us further on the final recommendations of the manufacturer of their fare boxes in regard to the dimensional characteristics of the proposed new coins. This information has not been received. The "Star" Ferry Co., Ltd. report that their experience of electrically operated automatic coin acceptance machines has been unfavourable to date in that the machines are subject to frequent breakdowns caused by minor voltage changes in the power supply. As a result they use them only on a limited basis.

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The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation informed us that the local agents for the machines which the Bank use for sorting, counting and wrapping coins had been told by the manufacturers that they had no machines which could carry out these processes with square, seven sided or scalloped coins such as those proposed for certain denominations of Hong Kong's new coinage. No other organisation had raised this difficulty and we invited the Royal Mint 's advice on the point. The Mint 's reply was as follows

"Most types of coin counting machines work satisfactorily

with scalloped and other shaped coins. We believe it

most unlikely that you will encounter problems in this area".

The Accountant General raised this point again with a staff member of the Royal Mint who visited Hong Kong in April. Following the visit the Mint sent the following cable:

"Have made further enquiry into counting and wrapping

of shaped coins. All evidence available including direct discussion with banks using scalloped coins suggests there are no serious problems, this confirms extensive enquiries made by us at time of introduction of decimal currency into U.K. What is not absolutely clear is whether all types of machine have this facility and we have no direct knowledge of operating mechanism of full range of machines.

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