Number of Irish Pounds outstanding by series and denomination?

[Vellakare]

Hi

Is there any definite data on how many of the old Irish Pounds are left in circulation?

The Central Bank used to have a section detailing these in their reports, but it appears to have completely disappeared.

[Mac]

Those totals outstanding were a useful reference alright.

The only information I could find more recently in a Central Bank publication (probably their report) was a total outstanding amount in Euro of all old currency, no breakdowns by Series or denomination.

[Vellakare]

From memory, in 2002, there were 4 Million 10/- notes outstanding. 6 Million 1 Pound notes and 4 Million 5 Pound notes were never redeemed. The amount outstanding comes to 420 Million Euro.

[JohnnyQ]

I received a copy of The Central Banks quarterly bulletin from the mid 1980s to date. I have them stored and need to dig them out but the number of 10/- notes outstanding is approx 1,200,000. In the period from 1986 to the mid 90s only 1,000 10/- notes were redeemed.

[JohnnyQ]

Here is a letter I received from the central bank in 1992 confirming the amount of A series notes of each denomination outstanding just before the equivalent B series note was issued. I forgot I even had it! Hope people find it useful.

[Mac]

In the period from 1986 to the mid 90s only 1,000 10/- notes were redeemed.

Heh, I was responsible for about £100 face value of those! I once got a bundle of mould-damaged, white paint-stained, turpentine-soaked 1952-1968 Ten Bob notes. All I could do was give them a decent cremation...

[JohnnyQ]

Haha, I’ve 100 of them as well. All 1951 to 1968. Couldn’t bring myself to send them off to be burned! 🥺

[Mac]

These are much nicer than mine were!
I miss the days of the bundles...

[Mac]

514,000 Euro worth of Irish banknotes redeemed in 2022, according to the Central Bank Annual Report, p155 – mostly C series I would expect.
Running the calculation, that equals £404,808 using 1.269738, or 404,724, 10s using 1.27.
The 514,000 may also be a rounded amount.

[Mac]

The most recent outstanding amount listed that I can find is in the Central Bank Annual Report for the year ending 2020, page 131, giving 224.1 million Euro (=£176,456,693, using 1.27 to calculate).

The two subsequent Annual Reports list amounts redeemed as follows:
403k redeemed in 2021
514k redeemed in 2022

This gives a total of 917,000 Euro worth of Irish pounds redeemed.
The calculated total outstanding at the end of 2022 is therefore:
224,100,000 - 917,000 = 223.183 million = £175,734,645, 10s using 1.27 to calculate, or £175,770,907 using 1.269738.

If we were to got back further in the Annual Reports, we could come up with a slightly more accurate figure by adding up all the redeemed amounts as the are rounded to thousands rather than the totals which are rounded to hundreds of thousands.

[Mac]

Central Bank of Ireland Annual Report archive is here:
https://www.centralbank.ie/publication/ ... al-reports

[DOC]

This is a great information source. I wonder how far back these reports go?

[Mac]

This is a great information source. I wonder how far back these reports go?

Downloadable pdf files go back to 2004.

[DOC]

Here is an interesting article which mentions that €1.5m of old notes and coins were exchanged by the Central Bank over last 3 years. The Bank continues to offer the service to exchange old notes and coins for euro.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0 ... and-coins/

[Mac]

That is quite a lot of old notes to be still trickling in. I expect most of it was in Series C. I wonder how many Ploughman notes are included in that amount!