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Pre-decimalisation money
- Thread starter Lumpammer
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RobT
Acemeccanoman
This Mini-Add calculator came out in 1950 for doing addition & subtraction of £sd
It is shown here in addition mode, lifting centre flap turned it to subtraction
It was operated by putting the metal thin pencil shaped rod (stylus) into the holes and moving downwards,
if adding i.e. 4d to 9d the total would exceed 12d so you had to move upwards left & down to make 1s/1d
I still have a similar one somewhere
Eric Gibson
master brummie
When I bought the business in 1965 the bedroom floors needed replacing, the locals said to look out for lost sovereigns when I took the old boards up.
All I found was a Birmingham workhouse penny and an Irish workhouse penny.
I gave them to a pal who added them to his lot and framed them.
I did have a small collection of pre 1947 and pre 1920 silver coins which I sold on Ebay for a decent price when the silver price was on the rise.
All I found was a Birmingham workhouse penny and an Irish workhouse penny.
I gave them to a pal who added them to his lot and framed them.I did have a small collection of pre 1947 and pre 1920 silver coins which I sold on Ebay for a decent price when the silver price was on the rise.
pjmburns
master brummie
Yes - we normally work in base 10. Think working in columns (h, t and u). That means the highest digit allowed in any column is a 9 and after that we "carry over" to the next column.
Pre decimal it was similar idea - purists will say it was different but to most people the idea is the same.
When we used pre decimal money each column was a like a different base. So pennies were based on 12 - highest allowed value 11. Shillings were based on 20 - highest normal value 19. The exception was if you chose to use just shillings or just pennies. Then you could write 25s or 14d.
In lengths we used 12 again for inches (highest was 11) and 3 for feet to yards (highest normal value 2).
Maths lesson over for today.
Hi,
As in Old Mohawk's post 5, we still saw many dearer items shown in Guineas rather than Pounds, although
I believe the last Guinea coin was minted in 1814. The value was £1/1/0 or one pound one shilling, and
an item at 99 Gns 'looked' a lot cheaper than one priced at £103/19/0, hence the attraction of
using an obsolete unit of currency.
Kind regards
Dave
As in Old Mohawk's post 5, we still saw many dearer items shown in Guineas rather than Pounds, although
I believe the last Guinea coin was minted in 1814. The value was £1/1/0 or one pound one shilling, and
an item at 99 Gns 'looked' a lot cheaper than one priced at £103/19/0, hence the attraction of
using an obsolete unit of currency.
Kind regards
Dave
Radiorails
master brummie
The Abacus is a very ancient method of calculation. An invaluable item used in the near and far east for thousands of years I believe.
oldMohawk
gone but not forgotten
Looking at the 'old money' calculation in post#15 which I did step by step in my head I'm trying to teach my laptop how to do that calculation using a spreadsheet.
The laptop has an intel i5 processor and 8Gb of memory and is superfast but at the moment it can't understand that division of a number can result in a number (quotient) and a number smaller than the divisor known as a remainder. It is stuck in it's decimal world.
I'm playing with Quotient and Mod commands at the moment but will have to try some other mathematical trickery.
The laptop has an intel i5 processor and 8Gb of memory and is superfast but at the moment it can't understand that division of a number can result in a number (quotient) and a number smaller than the divisor known as a remainder. It is stuck in it's decimal world.
I'm playing with Quotient and Mod commands at the moment but will have to try some other mathematical trickery.
Hi Pete
In 1939 Beer was around 5d for a pint of mild although there was a weaker
beer known as fourpenny ale at guess what! - 4d.
By the end of the war it was around a shilling (5p) due mainly to large duty increases.
It just crept up bit by bit until when I started at the Toby Jug in Castle Brom in 1973 the beer
was just going up from 10p to 12p per pint.
Having said that, the licenced non residential wage for staff at the time was 30p per hour.
That would buy you three pints (or 20 Players fags)
When you look at the price of those today it puts it into perspective.
That's inflation for you!
Kinds regards
Dave
oldMohawk
gone but not forgotten
Thanks Janice I'm working on that. I've altered the 11 shillings in the original question to 12 shillings so that I get another remainder.
Eric Gibson
master brummie
When we were in Gloucester on Sunday my friend bought an abacus from a charity shop for her two year old great granddaughter, must be still on sale in the likes of Toys R Us as it looked brand new.
Many exercise books for children would have tables like this on the back. Children would also need to know quantities like 'a gross' and 'a dozen'.
Dividing money between three people would be considered quite simple.
From my '11+' book -
Q.10 Discount is an allowance on a bill for paying promptly. I pay a bill for £7 10s and I am allowed 5 per cent discount.
a) What is the discount?
b) What do I actually pay?
mw0njm.
A Brummie Dude
Toby Jug
Kat7272
master brummie
Great site, thanks for this, just what I need as a start to get my head around the subject.
Radiorails
master brummie
Every efficient office had at least one.Robert Ensor (bob)
master brummie
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.
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.
Richard Dye
master brummie
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).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
Richard Dye
master brummie
How about half a crown or 2/6 piece. Or even a crown 5/- which is half of 10 bob!
adap2it
master brummie
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
Dave A
sospiri
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
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
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
oldMohawk
gone but not forgotten
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 ...
pjmburns
master brummie
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 
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.
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.
Eric Gibson
master brummie
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%.
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%.
Richard Dye
master brummie
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
Robert Ensor (bob)
master brummie
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.
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.
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