what I have learned today.

[Canardly]

I am modern it was four for a penny. 

[Tim Hall]

UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.

I was at the Weald and Downland open air museum today. The woman explaining the Victorian Railwayman's cottage told me that the rent would have been twenty five pence back in the 1890s. Maybe it was my Boyish Good Looks that made her think I wouldn't understand what five shillings were.

[Efrogwr]

In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?

[Basil]

A million years ago, I was hitch hiking around Italy with the previous holder of the title 'Ms B' .  The rate of exchange at that time was 1700 L to the £.
We loved a second hand car lot where the price went all the way across the windscreen and then down the side of the vehicle, almost to the back.  I'm sure I have a picture somewhere, but I can't find it atm.. 
Maybe in the biscuit box in the loft n son's house in Bournville. 

[Mr Larrington]

Many moons ago I had a 1 Kong Kong cent banknote, when there were about ten Kongbucks to the pound.  They were only printed on one side.

[robgul]

Blackjacks a farthing each 

As a child I actually bought one blackjack with a farthing coin.

Jeez - you must be really old 

It would appear so.

The farthing coin (with a wren on it) went out of circulation in 1960 IIRC but had probably ceased in common use about 3 or 4 years earlier - in my memory the only items that had prices with farthings were at baker shops.

[robgul]

A million years ago, I was hitch hiking around Italy with the previous holder of the title 'Ms B' .  The rate of exchange at that time was 1700 L to the £.
We loved a second hand car lot where the price went all the way across the windscreen and then down the side of the vehicle, almost to the back.  I'm sure I have a picture somewhere, but I can't find it atm.. 
Maybe in the biscuit box in the loft n son's house in Bournville.

Don't - a couple of years pre-Euro I was on a business trip to Milan and ventured into the Galleria shopping place next to the cathedral - I saw a very small leather handbag that I thought my (later to be) wife would like  - bought it but was stunned when the Amex bill arrived a few weeks later that it was TEN TIMES what I thought it had cost    - I'd obviously mis-placed the decimal point in my mental currency conversion calculations.   She does still have the handbag 

[Tim Hall]

In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?

I remember getting change for values of a not many Lira in the form of a handful of sweeties. That was in 1979.

[Rod Marton]

A million years ago, I was hitch hiking around Italy with the previous holder of the title 'Ms B' .  The rate of exchange at that time was 1700 L to the £.
We loved a second hand car lot where the price went all the way across the windscreen and then down the side of the vehicle, almost to the back.  I'm sure I have a picture somewhere, but I can't find it atm.. 
Maybe in the biscuit box in the loft n son's house in Bournville.

In Russia, during the period of post-Soviet hyperinflation, second-hand cars were priced in "virtual units". A virtual unit was equal to a dollar, but using it got round the problem that pricing in foreign currency had been made illegal, and avoided the long string of zeroes which would have been necessary were the car priced in roubles (as well as the need to increase the price every few days!).

[T42]

4+ GALLONS of petrol for £1 when I first started driving  (it was 4/10d in old parlance, per gallon)  - and a brand new Austin Mini de luxe cost £515/12/6d.

. . . .  and when Watneys Red Barrel passed two shillings a pint we boycotted it for a while.

I tried that dishwater just once, on a trip to London, and boycotted it for ever.

[Cudzoziemiec]

UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.

But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

[Cudzoziemiec]

That some trains are fitted with engine stop-start technology, like cars. Apparently it saves 20,000 litres of fuel a year for each train.

[Salvatore]

In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?

I remember getting change for values of a not many Lira in the form of a handful of sweeties. That was in 1979.

I remember in 1978 getting small denomination notes as change in Milan, and getting a shake of the head when I tried to spend them in Naples. Local money for local people.

[Basil]

UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.

But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

Exactly. I used to annoy my kids when they were young by always referring to a 50p piece as a 'Ten Bob Coin' and a 10p as a 'Florin'.
Purely for the comic effect.

And because it annoyed them. 

[Davef]

In Indonesia in 1990 away from touristy areas there was a shortage of sensible denomination notes and the highest value was about equivalent 10 pence, so when I cashed a £50 travellers cheque I got a carrier bag full. Smaller denomination notes - down to about 0.1p were rolled up and elastic banded just kept that way as they changed hands.

[ElyDave]

an ex-colleagure of mien was complaining bitterly about the (at that time) cash exit fee from Jakarta airport with umpteen zeros, until I pointed out "Steve, that's about ten bucks"

[woollypigs]

While in Yugoslavia we emptied a bank and all the staff out of dinars when converting Deutsch Mark and the bank closed for the rest of the day.

[Canardly]

I once paid a hire car driver in Sierra Leone in Two Leone notes which were the only thing available. Four stacks each a foot high or so.

[barakta]

UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.

But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

[Kim]

one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

7.  Some people are just rubbish at maths.

[Cudzoziemiec]

UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.

But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

My mum was 30. She did occasionally say things like "That's 10 bob in old money!" but only to exclaim over price. I don't remember my dad ever doing this. Though my parents did have a chair they called "the half crown chair" because that's how much it had cost them (2/6d). In fact, I think my sister has it now and I'm sure she calls it that too! My introduction to pre-decimal money was not my parents but the Just William books.

[robgul]

UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.

But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

I was 23 at the time of decimalisation but still think of some stuff in old money - usually in horror, making a price comparison with then and now!

Before we moved to decimal there was some discussion that we should have a "10/- pound" - i.e. split a pound into 2 top level units of currency - which is what they, I think, did in Australia when they move to decimal and the Oz dollar.    Given that the new (split) unit would have been the equivalent of 120d (old pence) with 100p (new pence) and thus much closer to the "penny" unit then the price increases and inflation that we saw immediaetly post-decimal may have been lessened?

[Polar Bear]

I started school in 1968 and thus learned elements of pre-decimalisation and post decimalisation: money, weights and measures.  I keep things in my mind for comparison such as 2.54 cms to an inch, 39 inches to a metre, 1,609 metres in a mile, 1.76 pints in a litre and 2.2 pounds in a kilogram.  A little bit of mental maths usually brings me to a close approximation of reality should it ever be required.

I was never any good at remembering the old notes and coins though save for thruppenny bits.

[Mr Larrington]

In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?

I remember getting change for values of a not many Lira in the form of a handful of sweeties. That was in 1979.

There was a story doing the rounds that explained the shortage of small change in Italy in the 1970s being because the Swiss were nicking them and melting them down to make watch cases.  Depending on where you were, you might also have received postage stamps or tram tokens in change.

I started school in 1968 and thus learned elements of pre-decimalisation and post decimalisation: money, weights and measures.

I'd just got the hang of decimal money when we moved back to the UK in 1970 and thus had to endure ten months of monetary oddness before The Scaffold rocked up and sang our currency into the twentieth century.

[T42]

I was 23 at the time of decimalisation but still think of some stuff in old money - usually in horror, making a price comparison with then and now!

Yeah.  Downstairs I have my father's copy of Out Of The Silent Planet, a Pan paperback priced at 6^d.  Now selling new on Amazon for 11 €.