Author Topic: Happy Decimalisation Day!  (Read 5015 times)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #25 on: 16 February, 2021, 11:42:16 am »
For anyone wanting good old British currency instead of this filthy foreign decimal stuff it should be noted that £ s d (Librae, Solidi and denari) were introduced by Charlemagne when he sorted out the old Roman currency and are therefor French.
So when people say 'Do me a solid!' they're actually asking for 5p?
 :D
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Basil

  • Um....err......oh bugger!
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Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #26 on: 16 February, 2021, 12:12:29 pm »
During one of our first gardening sessions at this house we found a silver thrupenny bit.
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #27 on: 16 February, 2021, 12:21:47 pm »
According to my mother, the old system made mental arithmetic easier, since few things are sold in tens.  Also, it was easier to work out a third or a quarter of prices.

This seems to be the logic behind most firkin/furlong/farenheit units, and probably makes some sense[1] in a world before computers have been invented.


[1] Complicated carrying rules can be drummed into humans at a formative age, but division never gets easier.

bairn again

Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #28 on: 16 February, 2021, 12:51:08 pm »
I was 6 at the time so memories are a little hazy but I definitely recall the excitement on the day itself and all the shops having conversion charts.  I dont remember the old system at all.   

My mum still refers to decimal prices in old money, normally to highlight how expensive something is ("That's eleven and nine!!" or suchlike which somehow isn't 20).   

I got a windfall via a decommissoned one arm bandit that only took / dispensed sixpence coins that was abandoned in my mums office....iirc sixpences were still accepted a good bit longer than the other coins and this bounty kept myself and my 2 brothers going in chips and irn bru for quite some time.   :thumbsup:

("What sort of workplace open to a primary school child would have one armed bandits?" I hear you ask.  Well my mum had a cool job - she worked in the office of a chain of Scottish record shops and HQ was above their store in the wonderfully named Cow Wynd in Falkirk.  I used to go there at lunchtime and after school and their office was an Aladdin's cave of music industry stuff, normally flexi discs and t shirts and I think the bandit had been used in some kind of promo).   

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #29 on: 16 February, 2021, 12:59:41 pm »
Brexiteers are probably planning to bring it all back, assuming they can't go for broke and revert to groats.

Curiously, I remember one pound being approximately 20 Austrian schillings in 2000.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #30 on: 16 February, 2021, 01:04:41 pm »
I was <fx:counts on fingers> 9, so at Primary school. It must have been half term, or we got a day off, as I remember going along the high street with a couple of friends doing a survey we had invented.  We showed it to Mr Edmondson,  the Headmaster, and got given a sweet each as a reward.

I've got the sets of coins Dad bought for me and my two sisters somewhere - they turned up when we emptied the house a couple of years ago.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #31 on: 16 February, 2021, 01:41:05 pm »
According to my mother, the old system made mental arithmetic easier, since few things are sold in tens.  Also, it was easier to work out a third or a quarter of prices.
Isn't it the other way round? Things were sold in fours and twelves and so on because of the measurement system in use? As evidence, I point to eggs in Poland, which are sold in fives and tens.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #32 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:08:48 pm »
I'm afraid 5 eggs is silly.
It is simpler than it looks.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #33 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:12:28 pm »
You're probably envisaging them in an egg box.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #34 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:12:50 pm »
Curiously, I remember one pound being approximately 20 Austrian schillings in 2000.

I remember the same from the mid 90s. The German friend I was travelling with at the time couldn't understand how I could convert to Sterling so instinctively...

TBF, given that I was <1 year old at decimalisation, that's probably a fair question.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #35 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:16:26 pm »
Quote from: Sir PTerry
“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). Once Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.

The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.”

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #36 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:44:30 pm »
Brexiteers are probably planning to bring it all back, assuming they can't go for broke and revert to groats.

Curiously, I remember one pound being approximately 20 Austrian schillings in 2000.

Groats are foreign too - French or possibly Dutch. The good old penny comes from Old Germanic roots so is out as well.

Turnips will be the new currency.
“There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened.”
― Douglas Adams

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #37 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:52:48 pm »
handling over 17/6d was completely bonkers.
A ten bob note, 7 shillings and a tanner. Simple. :thumbsup:

A ten bob note and three half-crowns (before 1/1/1970)...

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #38 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:59:08 pm »
Curiously, I remember one pound being approximately 20 Austrian schillings in 2000.

I remember the same from the mid 90s. The German friend I was travelling with at the time couldn't understand how I could convert to Sterling so instinctively...

TBF, given that I was <1 year old at decimalisation, that's probably a fair question.

A shilling was only a bit less than a Danish Krone in the 1960s. The coins were a similar size and shape. Then Sterling devalued.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #39 on: 16 February, 2021, 02:59:21 pm »
Having no use for money before we moved to Germany in 1968 this Unit was weaned on decimal currency.  Unfortunately I then had a Several of months of florins, groats and Giant Pennies when we returned to Blighty in 1970.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #40 on: 16 February, 2021, 03:03:49 pm »
Diamondgeezer has brought back £sd:

https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/
Nothing to do with decimalisation from the blogspot that links to now:
Quote
St Helen's is the largest such place of worship to survive the Great Fire and the Blitz, although two IRA bombs caused a fair bit of damage in the 1990s so there's been a lot of touching up. The interior's broad and spacious with two naves, all the better to cram in the four different congregations who turn up on Sundays. Parishioners were setting up for the main morning service when I peered in, with Mandarin, Informal and Contemporary gatherings due later in the day.
Surely church services are all virtual now?

A new blog is added at the top each day, you have to scroll down for earlier blogs

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #41 on: 16 February, 2021, 03:05:56 pm »
A ten bob note and three half-crowns (before 1/1/1970)...

Barp! Repetition!

handling over 17/6d was completely bonkers.
A ten bob note, 7 shillings and a tanner. Simple. :thumbsup:

More likely a ten bob note and three half-crowns.

We were holding a protest in the tuck shop as they'd sneakily upped the price of Blackjacks from 4-a-penny (960/£) to 4-a-new-halfpenny (800/£). Bastards.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #42 on: 16 February, 2021, 03:08:24 pm »
"A penny, a penny, tuppence, and penny and a half and a halfpenny" - who?
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #43 on: 16 February, 2021, 03:18:24 pm »
"A penny, a penny, tuppence, and penny and a half and a halfpenny" - who?
hmm. Is it from Dickens? It looks like how many beans make five.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #44 on: 16 February, 2021, 03:24:46 pm »
"A penny, a penny, tuppence, and penny and a half and a halfpenny" - who?
hmm. Is it from Dickens? It looks like how many beans make five.

Quote from: Baldrick
Some beans?
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Basil

  • Um....err......oh bugger!
  • Help me!
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #45 on: 16 February, 2021, 03:45:21 pm »
After decimalisation the new 5p coins were the same size and weight as the shilling.  (In fact old shillings remained in circulation for some time)
This was also the same size and weight as the German mark.  This made purchasing cigarettes from machines in Germany nice and cheap.  It also vastly improved the odds on those gambling machines they had in bars then. (Until you started to win back 5ps, which was when it was time for a sharp exit)
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #46 on: 16 February, 2021, 05:25:06 pm »
Farthings & pence.  Late Victorias, 1806 George III and an 1890s 5C piece from Hong Kong just for giggles.

Half-crowns.  I remember feeling as rich as Croesus if I was given one of these and a ten bob note was wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.

Couple of silver 3d & a half sovereign.

Some wooden 3d & tanners (1).

Hardly in Smaug's league, but just in case the Faragists decide to take this whole 1950s shtick all the way. :)


It's utterly impractical and (whisper it) a bit romantical, but the thing that I miss is the sense of history and a connection with the past in your pocket.  You could fish out a handful of small change and be handling coins that had been in circulation for well over a hundred years, possibly longer, with a huge variety of designs showing the profiles of two or three Emporers, the odd Empress and any number of plain old Kings.  Now?  Well a few pictures of Brenda and the designs?  Oh, merciful heavens!  Welcome to the kindergarten.  Would I go back?  Nah, decimal is a sensible system, but ...


(1) Why tanner?  *Possibly* because some several hundred years ago they were nick-named "Simons" after a Master of the Mint of that name and from the Biblical
quote,"... the apostle lodged with one Simon, a tanner."  (Acts 9:43; 10:6,32). Never let it be said our ancestors couldn't come up with a good bit of word play.

ETA.
In case you're wondering I *do* have a use for all that scrap metal.  Stacks of pennies, ha'pennies, two-bob bits & shillings make for excellent dihedral jigs when assembling the wings of model aircraft,
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #47 on: 16 February, 2021, 05:53:21 pm »

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More keyboard photos please!

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #48 on: 16 February, 2021, 06:02:14 pm »
Brenda has been on all the coins because she's having a long reign. 68 years before she acceded the throne is well into Victoriana.

I loved the pre-decimal coins though.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Happy Decimalisation Day!
« Reply #49 on: 16 February, 2021, 06:10:56 pm »
After decimalisation the new 5p coins were the same size and weight as the shilling.  (In fact old shillings remained in circulation for some time)
This was also the same size and weight as the German mark.  This made purchasing cigarettes from machines in Germany nice and cheap.  It also vastly improved the odds on those gambling machines they had in bars then. (Until you started to win back 5ps, which was when it was time for a sharp exit)

There was one pre-Euro Belgian coin – I forget which – that came in very handy for feeding car park ticket machines.  You must, of course, never do such a terrible thing.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime