Re: [CR]Making sense of old British prices

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:58:13 -0600
From: "John Thompson" <john@os2.dhs.org>
Organization: The Crimson Permanent Assurance
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]Making sense of old British prices
References: <3.0.6.32.20081128090630.017b7318@mailhost.oxford.net>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20081128090630.017b7318@mailhost.oxford.net>

John Betmanis wrote:
> Let's not forget the farthing (as in the 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.

Ha! I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense:

http://os2.dhs.org/~john/penny-farthing.jpg

Thanks for mentioning that!

--
John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA