Well just to add my two penorth LOL, pre decimalisation money amounts were written down as £, S, D, IE £2/19/11 or even 59/11d .......... £2.0.0 + 19/- + 11d = £2/19/11. I do hope I have got this right, memory not as good as it was.Last week a ten shilling note was found in some old possessions. It's the first time I have actually handled a note from before decimalisation.
Ok, that's nothing to write home about (or to the forum!), but it got me thinking about the money that my ancestors would have been using.
Obviously I could 'search engine' the subject, but it's much more interesting asking the forum where they recommend that I look to find the history of money.
So if anyone could make any suggestions I would appreciate it.
me also smudge. they might bring out homer dosh for usNow that Boris has got us out of the Eu (well almost) wouldn`t it be nice if he got rid of decimal money & reverted back to the old pounds shillings & pence. It would be nice but rather chaotic! I remember when they brought out the gold looking £ coin. My late mother in law gave me a pound coin & saying, "here's a gold sovereign for you son". It wasn`t just old people who found the new decimal coins confusing, i think quite a few of us did! & as for metric, i`m still confused.
I noticed my grandson adding up to the "base 3", just as an exercise, it dawned on me that this type of thing was what we did when we added up £sd and yards, feet and inches, but with a purpose. I'm sure Janice as a maths teacher can explain better what I am trying to say. I have somewhere a bill from early decimal days that had been manually converted to decimal, the shop keeper worked to three places of decimals, it looks quite quaint.As a former maths teacher I couldn't have put it better. Not that I ever had to teach it - decimalisation came in just before I left school and about 5 years before I started teaching.
Of course you couldn't do that type of calculation on a normal calculator.
and me lyn. feet and yards. and a 2 pound of sugar, please!well i am not confused...i still ask for meat and veg in pounds and ounces and still work in feet and inches same with net curtains thats still in yards to me
£5.17.2d (Forget the halfpenny), does anyone remember when a loaf of bread was fourpence farthing? And spellcheck has just highlighted four pence. My father (the one who was always right) was an accountant and would take the fifties/sixties equivalent of a spread sheet and literally run his pencil down the amounts adding them as he went and when he did the cross check he always balanced. I do not know how he could add the whole amounts, while the rest of us added the pennies, and carried forward, then the shillings, and carried forward etc,etc. I remember that in 1953, if you had two halfcrowns (or five shillings) left over on a Friday, it was enough for five ciggies a trip to a fleapit and half a pint. I only once had a Crown coin and had great difficulty spending it as shops and buses did not like them. Dad once came home with a white five pound note.A ten shilling note (ten bob note) was my favourite when I was young and we were all familiar with the following terms.
ha'penny, tuppence, thruppence, a tanner, a bob, two bob, half a crown, ten bob note and in the 'posh' shops guineas.
We also had to be 'brainier' to deal with it ... try the following ...
Calculate how to it share out £17pounds, 11shillings, and six and half pennies between 3 people - long division in old money.
I could do it (without calculators) when I was young.
An old post below
See the following
Decimalisation In 1971
I was rummaging through a few old things of mine and I came across the following booklet about decimalisation that I am certain many will remember! Myself I was only a month away from being 5 so I don't personally! I remember Mom and Dad telling me when I got older that a lot of people felt...birminghamhistory.co.uk
Long after the decimal currency came in one of my old 'Forester' customers asked me what he could do with some old pound notes he had that he'd 'put away and forgotten about'
I took them to my bank and changed them for him, all £250 worth. , even now my memory isn't so bad I could forget a wad of cash tucked away.
There were quite a few lads from my youth who, if asked to do a maths problem at school struggled to do it either through inability or lack of interest but when asked to work out their winnings on a 5/- each way 3 horse accumalator bet, could give the correct answer in seconds!I noticed my grandson adding up to the "base 3", just as an exercise, it dawned on me that this type of thing was what we did when we added up £sd and yards, feet and inches, but with a purpose. I'm sure Janice as a maths teacher can explain better what I am trying to say. I have somewhere a bill from early decimal days that had been manually converted to decimal, the shop keeper worked to three places of decimals, it looks quite quaint.