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Pre-decimalisation money

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It's hard to imagine these days some of the old math problems in old money.
Fist off who ever had that much money that it was a problem, a pound went so far back then there was a need for small amount coins plus remember a pocket full of pennies the weight would pull down your trousers and you ended up with holes in your pockets.

The old white fiver, my grandfather sent my pop to the shops with one when he was a kid, the shop keeper called the police he could not believe a child could come to have that much money

The change over from old money to new money a bob became 5 new pence everything was shown in old and new money we had to reprice all the merchandise in the shop with the new money amount.
The older customers had such a difficult time having a new type of coinage thrust upon them and the value of the old changed.
I remember having all the new money at the shop in bags ready to use, and then people saying don't give me any of that new money in my change.
One of the things was running the shop with a cash till that was never designed for that many types of coins we just ended up pairing the old and new but keept the old Tanner on its own

My mother's math addition was unbelievable she would have a counter full of groceries and would do the addition in her head once in while she would use a scrap of paper, never thought to ask her about how easier it became to reckon a order.
 
Kat,

Like most of the older ones on the Forum, I can remember the farthing, the halfpenny, the penny, the 12-sided threepenny bit, the little sixpence, the shilling, the florin (two bob), the half crown (2/6d), the crown (5 bob), the ten shilling note, the one pound nore, and the large white five pound note. Anything bigger and you could consider yourself rich! If I've missed anything out, put it down to my rapidly fading memory for those times. Preceding that there was also the groat, but not in general use in my young day, likewise the guinea and the half guinea.

Maurice :cool:
Hello Maurice, I seem to remember a Guinea piece. I seem to remember my uncle who was a market gardener had some. They were used at auctions, when someone bid in pounds the counter bid was guineas (21 shillings). :)
 
Some more pre-decimal coins, with a modern £1 coin for scale

From left to right

Three pence (from 1955) - "Thrupenny bit"
Sixpence (from 1967)
Shilling - 12 pence (from 1958)
Two shillings - 24 pence (from 1948)

Why on earth did we have 240 pence in the pound!

View attachment 141237
How about half a crown or 2/6 piece. Or even a crown 5/- which is half of 10 bob!
 
I remember when my son was born in 1968, we bought him over to the UK (from Canada) to meet the grand folks. The shilling piece was being introduced as 5p, as a way of easing into the upcoming decimalization of currency, anyone remember that? Later in 1971, I was back visiting and the new system was in place. I could not help but notice the inflation that had taken place in such a relatively short period of time. Spending a penny was now spending 2.4 pennies, a good example of my point. My opinion at the time was that the 10/-note should have been the pound, half crowns would have been quarters (25p) etc...therefore spending a penny would have been inflated to 1.2 pennies, which I felt to be much more equitable.
Dave A
 
But then those of that age were taught all the arithmetic necessary to work things out. How many kids today can work out a square root by hand the long way - I still can, though I rarely do. A calculator is the only way for kids today. Likewise with conversions from yards, feet & inches to metric. Now I must admit that I would have to look it up if I needed to convert 2 bushels and a peck of something into litres! :) :) :)

I also suppose it's what today would be part of the "need to know" basis. It doesn't come into the O Level Maths paper so there is no need to know anything about it. Even with a PhD in maths, you still wouldn't know without looking it up. Same basis - no need to know :) Then again, within a month of starting my first job in the Cashier's Office of BCT, I was casting up columns of old money far more quickly and more accurately than some kid with a calculator could ever do. 'orses for courses, ain't it? :)

Maurice :cool:
 
In post#15 I did a calculation mostly in my head and in #42 I said I would teach my laptop how to do it using a spreadsheet. My old brain could easily cope with the £ column being less £ than the divisor or could even be zero £, but the spreadsheet needs a load of IF(Condition;Perform if TRUE; Perform if FALSE) statements ... makes one realise how good our brains are ... although the laptop will be faster if my spreadsheet eventually works ... :)
 
Maurice - just in case that was a slip. O levels stopped some time ago (1990s I ). Now GCSEs but even they have changed since I retired 6 years ago o_O They now have grade 9 to 1 not A* to G.
Imperial units in common usage had to be taught - miles (road signs), stones and pounds (weight), feet and inches (height) and so on. Not sure if it is still on syllabus or not.
I have to laugh about calculators. When I did my degree final exam I had to borrow one from uni (guarding it with my life as it cost about £100) now you can buy them for a few pounds. :grinning::grinning:
 
Bob's note about running the shop reminded me that we were in the same boat, the inflation remarks were really an exaggeration of what really happened, most of the items we sold were at the same price as before the money changed.
the bigger problem for us was when the purchase tax taken at wholesale level was changed to VAT and had to be taken at retail i.e. by us as shopkeepers.

We had to buy a new cash register to deal with the different rates whereas before all we needed was an under drawer till.

At first it wasn't too difficult because there were only zero and standard rates (10%) to deal with but that kept changing for political reasons, we had zero, 8% and 12.5% rates for a time and the zero rated items kept changing depending on if it was child or adult, biscuit or cake, etc. Then up to 15% , 17.5% and of late 20%.
 
It's hard to imagine these days some of the old math problems in old money.
Fist off who ever had that much money that it was a problem, a pound went so far back then there was a need for small amount coins plus remember a pocket full of pennies the weight would pull down your trousers and you ended up with holes in your pockets.

The old white fiver, my grandfather sent my pop to the shops with one when he was a kid, the shop keeper called the police he could not believe a child could come to have that much money

The change over from old money to new money a bob became 5 new pence everything was shown in old and new money we had to reprice all the merchandise in the shop with the new money amount.
The older customers had such a difficult time having a new type of coinage thrust upon them and the value of the old changed.
I remember having all the new money at the shop in bags ready to use, and then people saying don't give me any of that new money in my change.
One of the things was running the shop with a cash till that was never designed for that many types of coins we just ended up pairing the old and new but keept the old Tanner on its own

My mother's math addition was unbelievable she would have a counter full of groceries and would do the addition in her head once in while she would use a scrap of paper, never thought to ask her about how easier it became to reckon a order.
When I was growing up I did not have any problems with the complexity of the old money. The most I had to deal with was a shilling, never had much more than that until I was 12 :)
 
Its funny how reading something sets off your mind about things long forgotten..
When the 50p coin came out they were rare so my dad said to my mom when you get one in the shop I will buy them from you and collect them
So he started collecting 50p coins in a black plastic horse head with a slot from Lloyds Bank, and all went well at first as we would get 1 or 2 a day but the government must have got wind of my pop's plan to corner the 50p coin, and made millions of them but before my pop threw in the towel he had a fair few horse heads full.
That bring back more having to go and get change for the shop have a 10 pounds in my pocket but needing a bag to carry it from Lloyds Bank a place with a very cold business like
Atmosphere.
Then the change came in those bags in different colors and they had lots of holes.
 
the only prob i had with the old dosh.was having a lot of change in your pocket, you had to wear braces.so your trousers did not fall down:grinning:
 
I had a Saturday job in a shop selling groceries in the late 60's, we had an old fashioned till and an Olivetti hand adding machine but, unless it was a very large purchase, we used to add up in our heads.

The pre decimal money must sound very complicated to young people but when you were brought up with it we managed quite easily.
 
a) 7/6
b) £7/2/6

Correct Dave!
Often these old problems weren't as hard as they seemed, using dozens for quantities fitted in nicely with having 12 pennies to the shilling, i.e. if one egg cost a penny farthing (one and a quarter pennies) then a dozen will cost one and a quarter shillings or 1 shilling 3 pence, 1/3d.

The smart child would realise that 5% is a twentieth so pounds can be directly converted into shillings (there being 20 shillings to the pound). Thus £7 10s is seven and a half pounds and 5% will be seven and a half shillings, i.e. 7/6d.

The 'calculator generation' don't need to know these tricks. That is how shops get away with pricing like one DIY store tried on, they sold one length of timber for £1.99 and a pack of ten for £19.99. Shop assistants aren't very good with the 'residuals', we 'older' customers ignore the 'penny off' and round up to the 'true' cost (1.99 is nearer 2 than 1!) and then subtract the pennies. It is quite painful watching them do 1.99 + 2.99 + 1.99 + 0.99 rather than 2 + 3 + 2 + 1 - 4p
 
I remember my pop calling 5 shilling a " Dollar " I suppose that came from a exchange rate after the second war, he found himself In Germany on a base with a bunch of Americans and they had all the money and whatever they wanted
My pop use to collect the Coke bottles for the deposit
 
Never thought about this till just now
I wonder if and how much the government saved not having to mint so many coins and not having a ten bob note.
 
just out of curiosity i checked what my first wage would be in todays money...i started work the year decimalisation came out...i earned £7.50 per week as an office junior..could not put in £7.50 so i put in £8 which in todays money came up as £106.35...take a bit off for the extra 50p i put in...pretty sure that even school leavers these days earn more than about £100 a week...mind you sums was never my strong subject

lyn
 
Just a quick enlightening joke. A tramp goes into a posh restaurant, enjoys his meal and asks for the bill. This comes to 10 shillings and six pence. The tramp says to the waiter " 10 and six are sixteen, sixteen pence is one and four, one and four is five, her's a tanner, keep the change. As an aside, even today when asked the weight of their new born baby 99% of folk give the answer in lbs and ozs.
 
When the price of a pint went up to2/11d and they ordered 6-7 pints try.ing to add it up with all the noise was a killer:worried: :worried:
 
The 'calculator generation' don't need to know these tricks. That is how shops get away with pricing like one DIY store tried on, they sold one length of timber for £1.99 and a pack of ten for £19.99. Shop assistants aren't very good with the 'residuals', we 'older' customers ignore the 'penny off' and round up to the 'true' cost (1.99 is nearer 2 than 1!) and then subtract the pennies. It is quite painful watching them do 1.99 + 2.99 + 1.99 + 0.99 rather than 2 + 3 + 2 + 1 - 4p
Believe it or not they are taught those tricks about calling £1.99 £2 and then taking off the extra.
 
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