Old money

[Wacky Racer]

Oh for the good old days, pre February 15th 1971

240 pennies in a pound

480 Half pennies in a pound

960 Farthings in pound

8 Half crowns in a pound

10 Florins in a pound

20 shillings in a pound

40 sixpenny bits in a pound

80 threepenny bits in a pound

4 Crowns in a pound

One pound one shilling in a guinea


eg. £3/19s/6d Three pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence.


What could be more simple?

[nicanary]

. I still find myself thinking in £sd when I look at a modern price. I work out the old equivalent and then go white.

It was far simpler than people think. I could work out what change I was expecting to receive before it was handed to me.

(I still use imperial measurements for distance, which infuriates my daughter. She can't accept that a yard and a metre are more or less the same. It's when I get to chains and furlongs that she treats me like a leper.)

[HTP99]

nicanary said:

. I still find myself thinking in £sd when I look at a modern price. I work out the old equivalent and then go white.

It was far simpler than people think . I could work out what change I was expecting to receive before it was handed to me.

(I still use imperial measurements for distance, which infuriates my daughter. She can't accept that a yard and a metre are more or less the same. It's when I get to chains and furlongs that she treats me like a leper.)

Yeahh sure, my dad would say the same thing, keep convincing yourself!

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

I thought this was going to be about ancient Volvo and Subaru estates held together by baling twine, red trousers and leaking country houses.

I’m a youngster, so I’ll leave you old duffers to it

[nicanary]

HTP99 said:

nicanary said:

. I still find myself thinking in £sd when I look at a modern price. I work out the old equivalent and then go white.

It was far simpler than people think . I could work out what change I was expecting to receive before it was handed to me.

(I still use imperial measurements for distance, which infuriates my daughter. She can't accept that a yard and a metre are more or less the same. It's when I get to chains and furlongs that she treats me like a leper.)

Yeahh sure, my dad would say the same thing, keep convincing yourself!

Honestly it's simple if it's all you've ever known.

BTW I was working for a bank on 15 February 1971 - no computers for us, all hand-written ledgers - there was a substantial amount of work involved.

[Promised Land]

Wacky Racer said:

What could be more simple?

Units of 10, hence why they moved away from the dark ages way of counting.

[Nomme de Plum]

Promised Land said:

Wacky Racer said:

What could be more simple?

Units of 10, hence why they moved away from the dark ages way of counting.

I concur. Unfortunately many of our population are barely numerate so retuning to such an archaic currency base would be idiotic.

We should have also ditched imperial measurements. The Metric standard its so much more straightforward and once you add in the relationships of volume mass/weight force, energy etc it is a complete no brainer metric wins hands down.

[smn159]

You boy! Clean that chimney and you shall have a shiny sixpence...

[Actual]

It is so much more versatile to divide into 12. If only humans had 12 fingers.

Or even better 16 fingers in which case the computer might have been invented a century earlier.

[kambites]

I'm so glad I grew up in a (mostly) decimal age. Still faintly annoys me that we use miles on the road though.

[kambites]

Actual said:

It is so much more versatile to divide into 12. If only humans had 12 fingers.

It is, and if we had a base-twelve counting system it would make a lot of sense but firstly imperial units weren't all base-twelve, and secondly our counting system is base-ten. Ten is a particularly inflexible number, being the direct product of two primes, but it's far better than having a mixture!

[PlywoodPascal]

Actual said:

It is so much more versatile to divide into 12. If only humans had 12 fingers.

Or even better 16 fingers in which case the computer might have been invented a century earlier.

oh I never understood why it was all around 12... I seee

factors of 10: 10, 5, 2, 1

factors of 12: 12, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1

[Nomme de Plum]

kambites said:

I'm so glad I grew up in a (mostly) decimal age. Still faintly annoys me that we use miles on the road though.

There are not sufficient politicians from an engineering/science background. Their ignorance with regard to this whole field is concerning and the perpetuation of running dual systems makes no sense at all.

[Bob-iylho]

nicanary said:

She can't accept that a yard and a metre are more or less the same

Not really, do you think £1000 is more or less the same as £1100, I don't.
I work in measurements all day long, anyone working in 15/16th of an inch etc etc is truly bonkers.

[Nomme de Plum]

Bob-iylho said:

nicanary said:

She can't accept that a yard and a metre are more or less the same

Not really, do you think £1000 is more or less the same as £1100, I don't.
I work in measurements all day long, anyone working in 15/16th of an inch etc etc is truly bonkers.

I remember things like BSW for tools. Thank goodness for metric.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

nicanary said:

. I still find myself thinking in £sd when I look at a modern price. I work out the old equivalent and then go white.

It was far simpler than people think.

Increasing or reducing by a percentage was not simple. None of it was simple compared to a decimal currency.

[Allan L]

The shilling and the foot being made up of 12 (pence/inches) could, as has been pointed out above, easily be divided by 3 or 4. What went with the times was the way in which one's greengrocer could keep track of the running total at the same time as weighing produce with appropriate prices. Nowadays that skill has to be built into the machine.

When SI was introduced, I think I remember a Danish architect telling us that, when designing buildings for people, the millemetre was too small and the metre too large and what was really needed was a base unit of length around 30 cm long . . .

[tangerine_sedge]

Allan L said:

The shilling and the foot being made up of 12 (pence/inches) could, as has been pointed out above, easily be divided by 3 or 4. What went with the times was the way in which one's greengrocer could keep track of the running total at the same time as weighing produce with appropriate prices. Nowadays that skill has to be built into the machine..

Quick! Let's revert back to Imperial, so that greengrocers can add up more easily! We can also change the rules on apostophes at the same time, thus making their signwriting much easier too!

Allan L said:

When SI was introduced, I think I remember a Danish architect telling us that, when designing buildings for people, the millemetre was too small and the metre too large and what was really needed was a base unit of length around 30 cm long . . .

Did your Danish architect not realise that a length of ~30cm can be expressed in decimal as.....30cm?

[Got4wheels]

I was born 22 years after the switch over, so all of this makes no sense to me whatsoever. Neither can I comprehend how this would be easier in everyday life with £1 being made up of pennies over numerous derivatives up to 240p. It all seems very old fashioned that worked for green grocers, but who buys loose fruit and veg from one these days?

Michael

[Wacky Racer]

If I go into my local timber yard I will ask for:-

2 pieces of two be two wood 7ft 9" long

3 pieces of plywood sheet 8ft x 4ft

6 x 5ft pieces of three be two.


In fact there is a sign on their window FEET AND INCHES SPOKEN HERE.

However, for anyone thinking he is behind the times, he actually started taking credit cards two years ago.