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Half Penny (1/2d) |
Penny (1d) |
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Threepence (3d) |
Sixpence (6d) |
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One Shilling (1s or
1/-) |
Two Shillings (2s or
2/-) |
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Half Crown (2s 6d or 2/6) |
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"Old money" or Pounds, Shillings and Pence or
even more confusingly L.S.D. (that's Libra Solidus Denarius
by the way) was what people spent before what is affectionately
remembered as D-Day (no, not that one!) meaning Decimalisation
Day.
Before the 15th February 1971, if you needed to understand
money life wasn’t quite as simple as it is today.
You’d need to have understood the old system of
pounds, shllings and pence.
OK, calculators ready for the younger readers, while
I explain how it all worked:
Four farthings made a penny (1d)
Twelve pence made a shilling (1s or 1/-) or 'bob' (as
in 'bob a job')
Five shillings made a crown (although there was no such
thing except on special occasions, such as to mark the
Queen's Coronation in 1953, the death of Sir Winston
Churchill in 1965 and for no apparent reason in 1960)
You could have spent a half crown - that's 2/6 (two shillings
and six pence)
20 shillings made a pound and there were notes for 10
shillings as well.
So there were 240d (that's pence) in £1. That's
12 (pence in a shilling) x 20 (shillings in a pound)
- easy isn't it? I don't know why they ever changed it!
If you needed to add up in pounds, shillings and pence
you needed three columns.
Banknotes started at 10 shillings (50p in today's money).
The ten shilling (or ten bob) note disappeared in 1971,
being replaced by the fifty pence coin.
Oh, and what about guineas. One guinea was 21 shillings
- that's one pound and one shilling. There were no guinea
coins, but you might still find bills in guineas from
solicitors, accountants and other professionals, and
if you went on holiday you might have to settle your
hotel bill in guineas. It was a way of sounding posh
and also making a bill seem a little bit smaller than
it actually was – similar to the modern trick of £9.99
instead of £10!
1967 appeared to be the last year in which the old coins
were minted. However, the Royal Mint devised a method
to stop people hoarding the last of the old money. All
coins minted in old denominations from 1967 to 1970 were
dated 1967.
Starting from 1968 they started to mint the 'new money'.
In fact they started with coin denominated in 'New Pence'
of values 5 and 10. These fitted in well with the old
system, as they were direct replacements for the one
and two shilling pieces. In those days today's pence
were 'new pence' and that was what was on the coins.
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