1860 UK denomination

[Reorte]

12 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

A US term (declining in usage) for a quarter (quarter dollar) is "two bits" (meaning two eighths of a dollar).

 

Apparently, according to this wikipedia page dollar derives from the Bohemian Joachimsthaler (thaler) and Dutch leeuwendaalder (lion dollar). English speakers in the colonies applied the term dollar to the Spanish piece (peso) of eight (Real de a ocho).

 

The term "bit" lives on in "Bitcoin".

 

I suspect the connection with bitcoin is purely coincidental, that coming from "bit" as in "binary digit" due to it being an entirely digital system.

[Fenman]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Doesn't strike me as that much hassle to be honest, and no-one seems to be in a hurry to change time, what with 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, varying number of days in a month...

I think you’re too young to have lived through it?!

 

But if you don’t think it’s too much hassle, try an exercise the next time you find yourself with a supermarket shopping bill: first convert each item to LSD; and then add up the LSD column. 
 

In fairness, some people are a whizz at it (my mother could add up an LSD column just by glancing at it), but most of us mere mortals had to put a lot more effort into it. And mistakes were much more frequent. 
 

Or do you think it’s just fashion that pretty much every country in the whole world uses a decimal currency?
 

Paul

[Reorte]

37 minutes ago, Fenman said:

I think you’re too young to have lived through it?!

 

But if you don’t think it’s too much hassle, try an exercise the next time you find yourself with a supermarket shopping bill: first convert each item to LSD; and then add up the LSD column. 
 

In fairness, some people are a whizz at it (my mother could add up an LSD column just by glancing at it), but most of us mere mortals had to put a lot more effort into it. And mistakes were much more frequent. 
 

Or do you think it’s just fashion that pretty much every country in the whole world uses a decimal currency?

I'd struggle with it for a while simply because I'm not used to it (I'm not advocating going back). Mathematically speaking base 12 isn't any harder than base 10, and in some ways is more useful (5 factors instead of 3), so it's really just a question of familiarity. And 20 is straightforward enough it you're OK with 10.

 

It's not what I'd come up with if starting from scratch but if we still had it I wouldn't be in a hurry to change it (if we still had it I expect we'd be dropping the pennies by now though thanks to inflation, and just talking about half or quarter a shilling if we needed that small an amount; there's talk of removing 1[ and 2p coins anyway).

 

As I said it's like time, and there's no sign of any push to change that, and people generally seem happy enough knowing that 90 minutes and an hour and half are the same thing.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Reorte

[jchinuk]

On 25/11/2020 at 06:46, TheQ said:

...because the threepenny bit,  became much more popular..

 

 Threepenny bits. Very old rhyming slang for, well, what you see on Page Three.

 

jch

[spamcan61]

9 minutes ago, Reorte said:

there's talk of removing 1[ and 2p coins anyway).

 

They  are a waste of metal in my opinion. surely a 2p is worth less now than 1/2p was at decimalisation, I do find 2p coins useful as 'penny washers' by drilling a hole in the middle, less faff and often cheaper than buying a small quantity  from the local DIY barn.

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

They  are a waste of metal in my opinion. surely a 2p is worth less now than 1/2p was at decimalisation, I do find 2p coins useful as 'penny washers' by drilling a hole in the middle, less faff and often cheaper than buying a small quantity  from the local DIY barn.

 

Agree. If they are kept as a viable unit it won't be as coins, it'll be like several other countries that charge to the nearest unit but just round (probably up) when paying with coins. Like the .9p that's always on petrol pumps. 5p does seem to be about the minimum viable unit for a coin. The BoE's inflation calculator gives 1/2p in 1971 being worth just over 7p in 2019.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Reorte

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, Fenman said:

Frankly it was a nightmare to add up items priced in the old currency, using base 12 (and fractions of it), base 20 and base 10 in the same calculation. And there weren’t many calculators around. 

 

But there is also a theory that having a non-decimal currency improved the mental dexterity of the entire population, by constantly forcing the brain to exercise. 
 

Personally I was glad to see the back of LSD. 

 

Paul

 

I had to do an awful lot of it at various stages in my career and it was never anything which phased me at all.    But then I also played darts so was used to mental arithmetic there plus working behind a pub bar at various times.   You could use a ready reckoner for repetitive stuff like multiplying up the cost of, say, 33 Day Returns to Paddington but there was no way of avoiding the addition and balancing of sums in daily and later weekly accounts let alone 'proving' them in the 4 weekly accounts.  It was something thousands of people did everyday of their working lives.

 

Decimal was a bit easier but mainly because there were two columns of numbers instead of three so you only had to do two lots of addition.  But with decimal you had to add the right hand column up to a multiples of 100 whereas previously you'd only needed to add one column up to  multiples of 12 and another up to multiples of 20 so you were working with much smaller numbers and they could be added and checked more quickly.   

[jchinuk]

47 minutes ago, Fenman said:

I think you’re too young to have lived through it?!

 

But if you don’t think it’s too much hassle, try an exercise the next time you find yourself with a supermarket shopping bill: first convert each item to LSD; and then add up the LSD column. 
 

In fairness, some people are a whizz at it (my mother could add up an LSD column just by glancing at it), but most of us mere mortals had to put a lot more effort into it. And mistakes were much more frequent. 
 

Or do you think it’s just fashion that pretty much every country in the whole world uses a decimal currency?
 

Paul

 

I was 14 on D-Day (Decimalisation Day) and didn't find it too much of a problem changing over.  I do remember the theme song (by Max Bygraves) for the public information programmes, in those days the only conspiracy was about shop keepers raising prices. 

 

A friend had a Saturday Job in a bakery / cake shop and she had to explain everything to many older customers, despite the advertising.

 

I had only been taught metric units and system at school, so it seemed logical.  I recall there was some discussion as to how it should be achieved, it was decided to keep the Pound unchanged, which resulted in the 240 (old) pennies becoming 100 (new) pence, apparently one considered option was to create a "New Pound" equating to 10 shillings, which would have left the old/new pennies much closer in value, but I think that would have caused even more confusion.  I think some experts even suggested creating a "Dollar" as the smallest note.

 

As in later life I worked on large financial computer systems, decimal currency made life a lot easier.

 

jch

[Fenman]

44 minutes ago, Reorte said:

...

 

As I said it's like time, and there's no sign of any push to change that, and people generally seem happy enough knowing that 90 minutes and an hour and half are the same thing.

 

You seem to be ignoring the key difference: most of us hardly ever have to add up columns of times! 

 

Paul

 

[Reorte]

1 minute ago, Fenman said:

 

You seem to be ignoring the key difference: most of us hardly ever have to add up columns of times! 

 

 

"The train leaves at twenty past three, it'll take forty-five minutes to get to the station"...

[Talltim]

One thing that always baffled me was that when the Euro was created, it was worth such a small amount. Surely if you are creating a new currency, make it large, so it is inflation proof for as long as possible. As it is, the cent has become pointless in less than 25 years

[Fenman]

6 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

"The train leaves at twenty past three, it'll take forty-five minutes to get to the station"...

 

Can two figures be a column? Not exactly the supermarket bill I referred to earlier, or Stationmaster's daily office takings...

 

Paul

 

 

[Fenman]

7 minutes ago, Talltim said:

One thing that always baffled me was that when the Euro was created, it was worth such a small amount. Surely if you are creating a new currency, make it large, so it is inflation proof for as long as possible. As it is, the cent has become pointless in less than 25 years

 

Or you follow the German approach of making fighting inflation your primary economic policy, rather than the British approach of just giving in to it?

 

Paul

[spamcan61]

20 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

Or you follow the German approach of making fighting inflation your primary economic policy, rather than the British approach of just giving in to it?

 

Paul

Maybe, depends what a given government's political goals are, inflation rate isn't the only economic metric to consider.

[Grovenor]

35 minutes ago, Talltim said:

One thing that always baffled me was that when the Euro was created, it was worth such a small amount. Surely if you are creating a new currency, make it large, so it is inflation proof for as long as possible. As it is, the cent has become pointless in less than 25 years

Given the ezchange rate, if the cent is pointless then so is the penny.

[Reorte]

9 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

Given the ezchange rate, if the cent is pointless then so is the penny.

If you need 7p now to buy what 1/2p did in 1971 I'd say that yes, the penny has become pointless.

[Joseph_Pestell]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

If you need 7p now to buy what 1/2p did in 1971 I'd say that yes, the penny has become pointless.

 

I'm surprised that we still have the £5 note given that is worth less than the 10s note was worth when withdrawn.

[Reorte]

Just now, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I'm surprised that we still have the £5 note given that is worth less than the 10s note was worth when withdrawn.

I've thought that for a while, it would make more sense as a coin.

[BernardTPM]

4 hours ago, jchinuk said:

I was 14 on D-Day (Decimalisation Day) and didn't find it too much of a problem changing over.  I do remember the theme song (by Max Bygraves) for the public information programmes, in those days the only conspiracy was about shop keepers raising prices. 

 

I had only been taught metric units and system at school, so it seemed logical.

I was 14 just a few months later, but I don't remember that song at all, though I do remember the little 'shorts' The Scaffold did: Decimal Five.

 

Also was brought up on Imperial measurements, so I guess there were differences in schools across the country.

[Nearholmer]

I must be a couple of years younger than you guys, but was also taught ‘full imperial’. I don’t remember there being any special lessons to introduce us to decimalisation, it seemed, and is, so logical and simple that nothing was necessary. All those bizarre imperial things leaked out of my brain very swiftly, and I really struggle to work in pounds and ounces, and stones are totally beyond me.

 

The only people I recall struggling with the concept of decimalisation were truly ancient folk - probably people of the age that I am now!

[Kickstart]

On 26/11/2020 at 12:33, spamcan61 said:

They  are a waste of metal in my opinion. surely a 2p is worth less now than 1/2p was at decimalisation, I do find 2p coins useful as 'penny washers' by drilling a hole in the middle, less faff and often cheaper than buying a small quantity  from the local DIY barn.

Quite commonly used for basing 28mm wargames figures!

 

I was 3 when we went decimal, but at school we were taught both metric and imperial. And I tend to use them interchangeably (not the more esoteric measures though) , and even mix them.

 

All the best

 

Katy

Edited November 28, 2020 by Kickstart

[Hroth]

I put loose change in jars of various denominations when I fillet my pockets each evening.  Eventually the "silver" coinage builds up to be packed into bank bags and I deposit them into the "locomotive" account... 

 

However, the 1p and 2p jars just grow, and now the weight of coinage is too much to lug to the bank to dispose of*.   There must be at least £40 worth of the little bu@@ers and that works out at about 14.25 Kg of the hateful objects...

 

 

* I'll get around to it.  As the local branch of my bank is to be shut in the new year, I'll dump the lot a few weeks before they close, so THEY can have the fun of disposing of them!

[Wheatley]

15 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I put loose change in jars of various denominations when I fillet my pockets each evening.  Eventually the "silver" coinage builds up to be packed into bank bags and I deposit them into the "locomotive" account... 

 

However, the 1p and 2p jars just grow, and now the weight of coinage is too much to lug to the bank to dispose of*.   There must be at least £40 worth of the little bu@@ers and that works out at about 14.25 Kg of the hateful objects...

 

 

* I'll get around to it.  As the local branch of my bank is to be shut in the new year, I'll dump the lot a few weeks before they close, so THEY can have the fun of disposing of them!

Your local supermarket may have a machine which converts loose change into tokens which can either be cashed in or used as payment. Don't tip the whole  carrier bag full in at once though, it jams the machine. You may guess how I know this...

[antrobuscp]

8 hours ago, jchinuk said:

 

........, apparently one considered option was to create a "New Pound" equating to 10 shillings, which would have left the old/new pennies much closer in value, but I think that would have caused even more confusion.

 

jch

I seem to recall that part of the logic of the 10 shillings = 1 (New) £ was that many of the existing coins would have nicely fitted in to the system. The half-crown (2/6d) would have become 25 new pence - similarly the shilling = 10p, sixpenny piece = 5p.

 

The mention of the threepenny piece further up the thread reminded me that one day in school, a friend said "if you can guess the date on this threepenny bit, you can have it". Now he didn't know that I helped in my parent's shop by counting the cash in the till each evening. I used to note the dates, mainly if a very old coin appeared. I had noticed however that many of the threepenny bits had been minted during WWII, and in 1943 in particular. In answer to my friend's question I said "1943". He was somewhat stunned that when he looked he had a few of them!! I wasn't paid out.

[Fat Controller]

26 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

Your local supermarket may have a machine which converts loose change into tokens which can either be cashed in or used as payment. Don't tip the whole  carrier bag full in at once though, it jams the machine. You may guess how I know this...

They also take about 15-20% off the top. Far better to bag up the change, and take it to your local Post Office or corner shop.