Now that we have bobs, guineas, farthings, half-crowns, etc., all that's left is to say what a crown was--5 shillings, or a quarter-pound, right? Were crowns used up until decimalization?
Mitch Harris Little Rock Canyon, Utah, USA
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 7:06 AM, John Betmanis <johnb@oxford.net> wrote:
> At 08:15 AM 28/11/2008 -0000, Paul Grosvenor wrote:
>>A "quid" is a pound, or a nicker, £1.
>>Half a dollar is 2/6, or half a crown, or in todays money 12 1/2p
>>A "tanner" is 6d (sixpence) or in todays money 2 1/2p
>>The pre 1971(14th February) pound had 240 pennies, or pence, or d. It
>>had 20 shillings, or 20 bob. 12d made 1s (or 1/-). It sounds very
>>complicated, and it probably was, but on 14th February 1971 we suddenly
>>had to get our heads around 100newpence = £1.00, no more pennies,
>>halfpennies, tanners, 2 bobs, half a crowns, threepenny bits - what a
>>shock that was!
>>Interestingly, I was in Kenya earlier this year where their currency is
>>the Kenyan shilling - which they call the "bob"!
>>And their 50 shilling coin is exactly the same as our 50p coin!
>
> You've just about covered it, Paul. (Can't remember if anyone mentioned t
he
> florin, which was 2 shillings, a bit smaller than the half crown coin.) A
nd
> just to keep this close to topic, let's not forget the farthing (as in th
e
> penny-farthing bicycle). The farthing was 1/4 of a penny, a copper coin
> just a little smaller than our penny. I think they were phased out in the
> fifties and I last remember the denonination being used in the price of
> bread. The old British penny was a copper coin about the size of our old
> silver dollar, so you can picture a penny-farthing bicycle.
>
> John Betmanis
> Woodstock, Ontario
> Canada