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Old British Money: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
{{cleanup|While this page was still good in September 2022, the paragraph discussing modern coins might need to be updated in 2023 with the passing of Elizabeth II and the ascendance of Charles III.}}
{{quote|''NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling {{=}} Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings {{=}} One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies {{=}} One Penny. Three pennies {{=}} A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences {{=}} A Sixpence. Two Sixpences {{=}} One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob {{=}} A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence {{=}} Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns {{=}} Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes {{=}} One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling {{=}} One Guinea.''
''The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.''|''[[Good Omens]]''}}
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The rules:
* 12 pence (symbol ''d'' for the Latin ''denarius'') (singular is "penny") to a shilling (''s'' for ''solidus''). Originally, a penny was 1/240th of a pound of sterling silver - about 1.4 grams, which is worth about £
* 20 shillings to the pound.
* 240 pence to the pound (£, as a migration from the old Latin ''libra'', or ''L'', making this the [[Fun with Acronyms|L.s.d.]] (librae, solidi, denarii) system, and not much more comprehensible than the drug.)
* A guinea is a gold coin worth one pound, one shilling (or 21s., or 252d., etc.). Named after the African country, but that was never its official name. Officially replaced by the pound coin in 1816, it was still used for pricing purposes by professionals. (The British love [[A Touch of Class, Ethnicity, and Religion|class]]: a tradesman would present his bill in pounds, a doctor or lawyer would charge you in guineas.) Today, it remains in use in the names of
"Three and six" means three shillings and sixpence. A stroke (US "slash") was often used to indicate shillings when writing amounts of money in figures; three shillings sixpence would be written "3/6". Three shillings exactly would be "3/-". On bills from this period you will often see the @ sign used to indicate a particular item is priced "@ 3/6" or whatever: this was responsible for popularising the symbol on typewriters, then computer keyboards, and therefore ultimately why it was used in email addresses later on.
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The five pound note used to be pretty large by banknote standards.
A rather odd, half-hearted attempt at decimalisation was introduced in Victorian times when a large number of florins (two-bob bits) were minted, officially as tenths of a pound. The design was hugely controversial, as, on the front, the queen's picture was accompanied by the words ''Victoria Regina'' ([[
Books and television programmes referencing pre-decimalisation currency will often say that a shilling was worth 5 pence. This is because when the changeover was effected, one old pound had to equal one new pound despite the former having 240 pence and the latter 100. Therefore, all smaller denominations had to be converted in proportion to the pound. One old shilling (12 old pence) was converted to 5 new pence and therefore remained one-twentieth of a pound – post-decimalisation, the old coins continued to be used for many years as 5p, alongside their physically matching decimal replacement; likewise, florins did for 10p. 'How many pence made up a shilling?' is therefore a common trick question in quizzes and the like.
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'''New Money'''
British coins always have the current monarch's head in profile on the "heads" side – traditionally facing in the opposite direction to that of their predecessor. The design of the "tails" side varies depending on when the coin was minted. Bank notes have the [[The House of Windsor|Queen]]'s portrait on one side and a building or person of historical significance on the other (as well as a metal "counterfeit strip" embedded to prevent forgeries)
As of 2008 the tails sides of the one, two, five, ten, 20, and 50p coins each feature a different segment of the "Royal Shield" (the [[wikipedia:Escutcheon (heraldry)|escutcheon]] of the [[wikipedia:Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom|royal coat of arms]]); you can get a full view of the Shield by placing a full set of coins together. The £1 has the whole Shield on it, while the £2 has some odd ringy-design. More detailed descriptions of the coins can be found on [[wikipedia:Coins of the pound sterling|The Other Wiki]].
For those that are interested the coins and notes used in the modern, decimal system of currency (pounds and pence) are;
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** 2p - 25mm in diameter.
** There was originally a 1/2p coin but it was withdrawn in 1984.
*** While the ha'penny always read "HALF PENNY", the 1p and 2p issued in 1971 (and several subsequent batches) bore the legend "NEW PENNY" and "NEW PENCE", before being changed in the 1990s for "ONE PENNY" and "TWO PENCE".
**** Actually, all the decimal coins said "New Pence" up until 1982, but the 1p and 2p are the only ones from that era that remain in circulation – the higher-denomination coins have all changed their size since so older ones are no longer around.
** Coppers are often used as weights for dealing drugs, as their weights match the convention of selling drugs in power-of-two fractions of an ounce: a 2p coin weighs 7g (1/4oz), a 1p coin weighs 3.5g (1/8oz). The 1/2p coin weighed 1.75g (1/16 oz) and the accuracy of this size deal suffered when the coin was withdrawn and dealers moved to using digital scales which only indicated down to tenths of a gramme.
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* Pound Coins: Unlike USD, £1 ''and'' £2 denominations are in coin form. A paper £1 existed for a time, but was phased out because they were always horrendously tatty. There are still £1 notes in Scotland.
** £1 - Round, golden (coloured) and slightly fatter than other coins. Has indentations and the phrase "Decus et Tutamen" ("An Ornament and a Safeguard"<ref>A reference to how the intendations or 'milling' were introduced by then-Royal Mint director Sir Isaac Newton as both a decoration and a means of showing if the coin had been clipped by nefarious characters who would collect the bits of gold and pass off the clipped coin as full value</ref> ) around the edge. Welsh-design coins use a different phrase, "Pleidiol wyf I'm Gwlad" ("True am I to my country"); Scottish-design coins, "nemo me impune lacessit" ("No-one provokes me with impunity")<ref> the motto of the Order of the Thistle, as well as Three serving Scottish and several defunct Scottish regiments, as well as Canadian and South African regiments of Scottish decent. The use of the motto caused some fuss as some Scots were angry it [[Serious Business|used Latin rather that the Gaelic "Cha togar m' fhearg gun dìoladh"]] That’s right: not only does Scottish coinage carry a [[Badass Boast]], but some people were sufficiently [[Badass]] to [[Violent Glaswegian|scrap over what language it carried this boast in.]]</ref>.
** £2 - Consists of a "silver" part slightly smaller than a 1p coin and a gold "rim" which makes it about the size of a 50p, with milled edges, and the inscription {{
*** For a coin that depicts technological progress its rather odd that it depicts it with a circular gear-train with an odd number (19) of cogs, which would lock solid if they were used.
** £5 - Usually commemorative issues, not in general circulation. Occasionally the introduction of a regular £5 coin is proposed, but so far there isn't one.
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* $5: Pinky/purple in colour with a bust of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and an image of Parliament house in Canberra on the other
* $10: Blue with [[Australian Literature|Banjo Patterson]] on one side and [[wikipedia:Mary Gilmore|Dame Mary Gilmore]] on the other. The side with Patterson has ''The Man From Snowy River'' on the microprint in the background.
** Fun fact: Prior to Gilmore's face being on the tenner, [[wikipedia:Francis Greenway|Francis Greenway's]] head was on the bill, making him the only convicted forger to be on a banknote.
* $20: Red/Oragne with [[wikipedia:Mary Reibey|Mary Reibey]] on one side and [[wikipedia:John Flynn (minister)|Reverend John Flynn]] on the other.
* $50: Yellow with [[wikipedia:David Unaipon|David Unaipon]] on one side and [[wikipedia:Edith Cowan|Edith Cowan]] on the other.
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'''North America'''
Yes, the US and Canada once had this kind of money, too. However, they got rid of it over a century before the other countries on the same standard.
When British colonists started arriving in the New World, they at first continued to use the currency of the old country--i.e. the pound sterling. However, British monetary policy and the vagaries of geography and trade meant that it was quite difficult to get your hands on British coins in North America, and the colonists started to turn elsewhere for coinage. As it happens, the Spanish had a gigantic mint in Mexico City pumping out 8-''real'' coins (called "pieces of eight" for their value and the ability to cut them up into eight one-''real'' "bits") of Mexican and South American silver, which were commonly used in international trade. Eventually, these "Spanish dollars"--so-called because they were made to the specifications of the Central European ''Joachimsthaler'', or ''thaler'' for short, which were popular across Continental Europe and had been brought to Spain by the Habsburgs--became the standard currency in pre-[[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary]] British North America. As a result, the newly-independent United States adopted the dollar as its unit of currency, divided ingeniously into 100 cents from the very beginning at the suggestion of [[Thomas Jefferson]].
This put Canada into a bit of a bind. Still British, the British administration wanted Canada to continue to use the pound sterling as the basis of its currency, but most Canadians, realizing the benefits of easy trade with their southern neighbor, wanted to assimilate to the American unit. For a while, a native Canadian pound was adopted, worth slightly less than the sterling for an easier-to-handle exchange rate with the dollar (interesting sidenote--the ha'penny was not issued in English-speaking Canada West, but it was issued in French-speaking Canada East, where it was known as the ''sou''). However, this situation proved to be untenable, and in 1857, the Province of Canada adopted an American-based decimal currency unit, although the British gold sovereign remained legal tender at a value of $4.86 2/3 (which remained true until the mid 1990s). When Confederation occurred ten years later, it was this currency that became the Canadian dollar of today.
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