How Much In Old Money?
It's a long time ago now but there used to be twelve pence in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound. Two hundred and forty pence. Forty sixpences. Eight half-crowns (a half crown was two shillings and sixpence). Eighty threepenny bits (pronounced "thruhpenny"). Four hundred and eighty halfpennies (often written ha'penny and pronounced "haypennies". You could, if you wished, call two shillings a florin. You could, if you wished, call one pound one shilling a guinea. Posh things, such as ladies' hats, used to be priced in guineas. Before I was born there were farthings, and each of those was half a ha'penny.
Oh look, there's more about it here. I am beginning to feel old.
It all changed on February 15, 1971. Decimal currency came in with the coins much as they are now: except one penny was called one New Penny or NP. There were half new pennies, too, but no two pound coins, of course, oh no.
The prices of everything suddenly went up slightly as shopkeepers rounded everything up. Don't tell me they didn't, for I was there (though Very, Very young of course).
I loved the old money: you could check through your change and find a Victorian penny, or sometimes one from even earlier.
In one of my endless junk-clearing forays in this house, I found this magazine:
Petticoat/Trend (clearly the two magazines had merged) dated February 24, 1968. It cost one shilling (that's five new pence, folks, or 5np if you prefer) and actually it was quite a glossy one for those days.
Its big shocking article is all about whether it's better to remain a virgin ("Virgins: Wise or Foolish?")
And there are lots of fashion pictures like these:
But it was the prices that interested me.
Okay, yes, you probably wouldn't call a frilly frock Gay Girl now, let's get that one over with, and you can insert your own cheap gag about dungarees if you wish.
But I'd forgotten that the prices were given in such different ways.
89s. 11d. That's eighty-nine shillings and elevenpence. You had to put the full stop after the s as it was short for shillings and after the d as it was short for some old Roman coin like denari or something - look, even I'm not that old.
Anyway, the price was given that way to in order to look Posh. 89s.11d should have been £4 9s. 11d.
Again, the same thing with the shoes at 65s., which should be £3 5s.
And here, to look Especially Posh, we have a dress priced in guineas: 5gns. was more usually written as £5 5s. The pink and lemon smock dress was, however, even more expensive at £6 9s.6d.
This was over forty years ago, of course, so you can see how expensive these clothes were for those days!
Okay, that's enough: I've felt older with every word I type and I'm now feeling about a hundred and thirty-three.
Oh look, there's more about it here. I am beginning to feel old.
It all changed on February 15, 1971. Decimal currency came in with the coins much as they are now: except one penny was called one New Penny or NP. There were half new pennies, too, but no two pound coins, of course, oh no.
The prices of everything suddenly went up slightly as shopkeepers rounded everything up. Don't tell me they didn't, for I was there (though Very, Very young of course).
I loved the old money: you could check through your change and find a Victorian penny, or sometimes one from even earlier.
In one of my endless junk-clearing forays in this house, I found this magazine:
Petticoat/Trend (clearly the two magazines had merged) dated February 24, 1968. It cost one shilling (that's five new pence, folks, or 5np if you prefer) and actually it was quite a glossy one for those days.Its big shocking article is all about whether it's better to remain a virgin ("Virgins: Wise or Foolish?")
And there are lots of fashion pictures like these:
But it was the prices that interested me.
Okay, yes, you probably wouldn't call a frilly frock Gay Girl now, let's get that one over with, and you can insert your own cheap gag about dungarees if you wish.But I'd forgotten that the prices were given in such different ways.
89s. 11d. That's eighty-nine shillings and elevenpence. You had to put the full stop after the s as it was short for shillings and after the d as it was short for some old Roman coin like denari or something - look, even I'm not that old.
Anyway, the price was given that way to in order to look Posh. 89s.11d should have been £4 9s. 11d.
Again, the same thing with the shoes at 65s., which should be £3 5s.
And here, to look Especially Posh, we have a dress priced in guineas: 5gns. was more usually written as £5 5s. The pink and lemon smock dress was, however, even more expensive at £6 9s.6d.This was over forty years ago, of course, so you can see how expensive these clothes were for those days!
Okay, that's enough: I've felt older with every word I type and I'm now feeling about a hundred and thirty-three.
posted by Daphne at 7:56 pm
8 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Well you don't look a day over 132 to me !
Course I don't know a groat from a half broad so you may be right.
Lira, sesterti, denarii, I believe. Hence the peculiar pound sign.
Ah, those were the days! I was at college then, so involved in the changeover in schools during teaching practice. Years later, my Y2 class had a "1940s" day - desks in rows, me swishing a cane etc and I tried a little money arithmetic with them. They were totally panic stricken- hadn't a clue.It brought home to me how complicated the system was compared with decimal currency. Kids these days- don't know they're born!!:)
.......swishing a cane, high heals, fishnet stockings !! Damn, Jenny, school days WERE the happiest days of young lives back then !
Course I may have only made up the heals and stockings in my own mind.
Ailbhe - yes, you're right - we've all forgotten that the pound sign is an L.
Silverback - weren't groats still currency when you were a lad? And really sorry to disappoint you, but my female teachers tended more to the tweed skirt than the fishnets.
Jenny - but at least in those far-off days once you'd learned the currency, you knew it. Kids these days tend to answer "ten" or "a hundred" fairly randomly to any question - - or so I found when I was teaching!
Yes, Daphne, you are right, although the Numeracy hour in primary schools has gone a long way towards improving children's maths concepts and they develop a range of strategies to work out problems and self-check too. (Oh dear, I sound like a teacher again!)
Ian, fishnets, mini skirts, high heels - you bet! ;)
A hundred and thirty three?
£1 6s 7 1/2d; in other words
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