Decimal Currency

[jb-eye]

Lets cut through the chase. Once upon a time we used to get 240 pennies to a pound. NOW we only get 100 pennies to the pound. Q: what happened to those other 140 pennies. We were conned. its that simple.

[SUBS]

You missed my point, I meant the shape was like a 20p coin today.

2 bob has several definitions most popular is S h i t, then tit. Lastly the version I mentioned.

Sort of, but it had 12 sides.

Spose threepenny bits, or two bob punt...yeah ?

Subs you the opposite of arf but similar age then?

Nah ! a lot younger. Just a good memory of how stuff was when I was little, and fascinated by the 50s era.

[hpotter]

not forgetting guineas.

that'll be 21 shillings (unless youre 2 - 3 hundred years old when value depended on gold price)

[blackfish]

I don't think it was a con although there was some unrest at the time. I recall shops had conversion charts on display so you could see at a glance what the old price was compared with the price in new currency. We referred to "new pence" for a while until the novelty wore off. The shopkeeper would say things like "that's 29 new pence, five and tenpence old money". It was introduced over a few years so that we could get used to it. There were TV ads where the young 'uns would teach their granny what it was all about.

Here's the time line:

APRIL 1968 - The new silver coins for 10 new pence and five new pence came in alongside the existing shilling and two bob (aka florin). They were the same sizes as the old money and therefore interchangeable(important for vending machines).

JULY 1969 - The old halfpenny/ha'penny was withdrawn in preparation for decimalisation. Shopkeepers were accused of rounding everything up but is wasn't really of consequence. Anyone hanging on to these would find that they were the same size as the new 2p. I hear that some ended up being used (fraudulently I guess) in public phone boxes!

OCTOBER 1969 - The ten bob note went next (two to the pound), replaced by the new big seven sided fifty pence piece. The ten bob note was brown.

DECEMBER 1969 - The half crown was withdrawn. That used to be worth 2/6 (eight to the pound, a crown was five bob). Some folk called the half crown a half dollar (probably related to exchange rate of 4 dollars to the pound at some point). It had been the biggest coin in circulation at that time.

15 FEBRUARY 1971 - Decimalisation Day. That's when the new 2p, 1p and 1/2p came in. The old sixpence was still around and could be tendered as 2.5p. The other old coins (threepence/thrupenny and penny) were withdrawn. You could swap them at banks up to August. I think you could use them in shops in multiples of 6d (2.5p) for a short while.

1980 - Old sixpence was withdrawn (2.5p).

1983 - Pound coin introduced.

1984 - New halfpenny was withdrawn (it was pretty worthless by then).

1990/1992 - The size of the 5p and 10p were reduced to the current sizes.

1997 - The 50p shrunk.

One final thought - I don't see how pocket calculators (and subsequently PCs) would have coped with pre-decimal monetary figures. Overall it's probably best that we went decimal but I still like feet and inches, stones and pounds and a pint of beer.

blackfish (old enough to remember but had to Google the above dates)

[Guest Oxo]

Good one.

Remember 1971, was on a coach with my dad ( he was the driver) load of welsh blokes on a day at the races.

They all had a collection and gave my dad a fair few quid as he waited for them at the race course and pub.

Then gave me handfuls of threepence/thrupenny and penny`s. Bastids......................

Give dad his due he swaped it and gave me about a quid instead.

Remember hunting the silver sixpence in the xmas pud?

[james.wilson]

That was a good read blackfish. I found it v interesting

Metric man myself but prefer miles, mph, pints, and stones

[Guest Oxo]

Who here actually works in metric? Apart from coinage.

Okay we have 100 mtr rolls of cable , 305 of Cat5 ect.

We order a pint in the pub.

No one weighs stuff in supermarkets ( fresh produce) we know what we want by feel or bag size.

Market shops/stalls sell by volume now,as in a bowl costs x ammount.

I order a steak in the butchers by saying cut it a inch and a half thick. Okies I like steak!

Order chops by how many.

Sliced meat by how many slices not grammes.

Factory I used to manage did everything in imperial, we just used conversions for some who bothered with metric.

Material was purchased in feet and inches from steel stock holders, they were starting to change mind.

Always found imperial more accurate for precise measurements. Like a slide rule as opposed to a calculator, far quicker to use!

Who says they did 100KPH in their car or bike..........not that we admit to 100MPH either

I can swim 5 miles with out too much effort, wots that in kilometers? Does it sound better?

Oh and i`m 19 and a half stone 6 ft 2 and a 1/2

Pah to metric lol

[SUBS]

My brains still geared to feet and inches as well, and I still think in old money, ten bob, 2 bob etc.

those who remember will also remember what it was like running for a bus with 2/- worth of old coins in your in your pocket. No wonder people used to carry handkerchiefs-they were to stop you rattling.

Calculators just werent around, you got used to doing it in your head, ever watched a darts player doing the scores in his head ? much the same thing,just what your used to. But there were ready reckoners (little books full of tables) to work it out if it got complicated.

Heres the back of a 60s primary school excercise book, for those who dont understand real weights and measures.

[jb-eye]

Who here actually works in metric? Apart from coinage.

Pah to metric lol

Made me laugh, so true. i order trunking as 3mt of 2"x2" Confused, LOL

[arfur mo]

My brains still geared to feet and inches as well, and I still think in old money, ten bob, 2 bob etc.

those who remember will also remember what it was like running for a bus with 2/- worth of old coins in your in your pocket. No wonder people used to carry handkerchiefs-they were to stop you rattling.

Calculators just werent around, you got used to doing it in your head, ever watched a darts player doing the scores in his head ? much the same thing,just what your used to. But there were ready reckoners (little books full of tables) to work it out if it got complicated.

Heres the back of a 60s primary school excercise book, for those who dont understand real weights and measures.

ready reckoners stirs memories, litle books looked like small dictionaries or in some dictionaries.

i remember being taught to make 'magic cubes' which were just look up tables on a grid, had 1 - 12 across the top and again down the the side, if you needed to know i.e. 3 x 9 you used the intersection (like a map grid) of to get the number from either direction.

manner from heaven for me, i could never get the gist of doing or remmembering times tables and still can't other than basics, i spent many a playtime and lunch break writing them out and long devission on the back of the (then called) 'black board' using chalk and in full view of my class mates, try telling a kid to do that today without being sacked for mental torture.

luckily it never affected me though .

usually as a punishment for causing classroom chaos when i got borred very quickly, only to watch what was my intense effort, to be summerly wiped away without a glance, and they wondered why i'd be even more of a disruptive little sod afterwards,

my favourit 'revenges' was gathering really fresh horse manuare in some old rags from a stables near the school, and lobbing it over the wall of the girls toilet which was outside, and no roof in those days being a victorian built school.

girls would normaly sream while i made my escape but i got caught when some teachers having a crafty fag just before 'bells' copped an aerial delivered payload, boy they in a state lol!

cause of the only really serious hiding i ever got off of my dad, and was well worth it in my eyes .

eventually i made a 'magic cube' and kept it in my pocket - simples teachers crowed to each other how much i had 'improoved' .

Arfur