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The whole concept of legal tender is taken rather loosely nowadays. They make silver £20 coins (with £6.50 silver content) and £100 coins (with £22 silver content) and sell them for 'face value' but I am confused about how these large denominations are all of a sudden legal tender just because the RM marketing dept says they are. As far as I can tell there has been no amendment to the laws to make them legal tender. They sell like hot cakes, £20 for £20 or £100 for £100. Shops don't take them, even a lot of banks/post offices won't take them. They sell on ebay for up to £30ish because people believe that they are proper currency. Is there anyone here with better legal knowledge on the current coins that actually are legal tender, because I'm quite sure the process is a fairly complicated one.

I used to buy coins and sets from the Royal Mint for many years. I do not recall exactly of which year, (~1979) but I decided to buy a proof sovereign from them. I ordered the coin and had to wait for them to start minting. That month the price of gold rocketed. I had a letter from the mint saying that due to huge demand the coins minted were going to have to go into some sort of lottery and therefore I may not necessarily get one. A month or so went buy and a friend at work managed to get one from the mint. He was not a coin collector and had never bought a coin before. He applied to buy a coin from the mint because the price of the coins were fixed at the original offer price. This brilliant investment price was mentioned in national newspapers after the gold price rise. I did not get one of the sovereigns. I complained to the mint by letter, saying that they should have looked after their regular customers first. I realised that the RM was just a money making machine . I have not bought a coin from them since and never will. I wouldn't buy a coin from them at half of it's spending value. (that's a lie ! I would buy a hundred thousand pound of pound coins for £50,000 !)