Predecimal Currency: The Nightmare in Your Pocket

Cashier: “Your total comes out to a joey, a tanner and a bob.” Guy at checkout with his 3 sons: ”I’m sorry young ones.”

It's called the LSD system because you need to be on LSD to have any idea how it works.

I was an American child living in London in 1971 when the change happened but I learned the old system first. Apparently it's still lurking in the back of my mind because I was at a pub in Sheffield about 10 years ago that was having a problem with their cash tills and the waitress was trying to figure my lunch bill without one. I looked at her and said "oh-you owe me 7 pounds 6 shillings change from a £20 note. She looked at me very oddly and I realized that she wouldn't have even been born in 1971-let alone dealt with £/s/d!

Livestock are still sold in Guineas today. The extra shilling is the auctioneers fee for the sale.

"Wales was the only sensible one" well there's a sentence I never thought I would hear

5:46 The £sd system isn’t from the medieval times! It’s actually from much longer ago, being based upon the roman Libra-Solidus-Dinarius system, which is why the abbreviation for pence is a d.

Canada introduced decimal currency in the 19th century (mainly to facilitate trade with the US). Australia decimalized in 1966 and New Zealand in 1967.

I was born in 1957 and I just about remember the Farthing (quarter penny) it went out of circulation in 1961. You very rarely saw a Crown coin. The one missing item from his list of coins and notes was the 10 bob note (10 shilling note).

It's not that people felt the new decimal system was "too difficult to learn," it's just that most people had to spend the first year calculating the new prices into the old money, to decide whether shop keepers were cheating them or giving them a good deal. Even now, 40 years on, it's a trope of casual conversation among those of a certain generation to say, about almost anything measurable, from speed limits to the length of dress fabric--"What's that in old money?"

My personal favourite example of this is in the very first episode of Doctor Who. Even before the change had been officially announced in the real world, the Doctor's granddaughter revealed herself as a time traveller when she forgot that the pound hadn't yet been decimalized in 1963. It's certainly aged better than some of their other predictions for the future.

I lived in the UK in 1985 and we were in a flat with an electricity meter that took 50 p coins, which were kind of old fashioned at that point. It was a constant scramble to keep a supply of them. I recall you’d still see shillings in circulation and the pound coin was still pretty new.

In Oz the changeover to decimal currency was 14th Feb 1966. We simplified it a little compared to the UK - IE the sixpence became 5 cents, the shilling (12 pence) became 10 cents, florin (24 pence or 2 shillings) became 20 cents, a new 50 cent coin was created. Farthings, halfpennies and threepence coins became history, the penny became the cent. The 10 shilling note became the dollar and the Pound note became 2 dollar note. IE the actual (buying power) value of the coins/notes was unchanged making it easy for all to adapt.

This reminds me of a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch which had the 'old system' as part of the dialog while the phrase "Sketch Written Before Decimalisation" appeared on the screen.

Yeah, l remember my grandfather complained about it constantly. He called decimalization the "yanking" of the British Economy. He knew the old system very well and was extremely reluctant to change . Of course ,he also disliked central heating amongst many other things.

I very much enjoyeed this broadcast. I was 17 when Britain decimalised it's currency and had been taught both 'metric' and 'imperial' at school from infancy. In no way am I suggesting any return to pounds, shillings and pence but routinely adding and subtracting what now seems to be mind blowing sums in LSD was commonplace in my youth. Everyone could do it easily and quickly, even people who could not read and write. Decimalisation and the soon to follow invention of the pocket calculator have somehow robbed us all of a fiscal mental agility that was once commonplace. Just an observation

When I was growing up in the 1960s, the 'three pence' coin was usually referred to as a 'threepenny bit' (pronounced 'threppenny'), though older people sometimes said 'thruppenny' or 'thruppence'. By then it was a twelve--sided brass coin, quite unlike any other British coin, though prior to 1946 it had been a much smaller conventionally shaped silver one.

It took me about three seconds to do the math in my head for how many coins were needed. I was totally wrong; but still, three seconds!

Fun fact: You know how the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland usually wears a hat with a card on it that reads "10/6"? You probably thought that was a weird size measurement, but it's actually the price tag! That hat costs 10 shilling 6 pence, therefore half a Guinea. He's such an idiot, he wears a hat with the price tag still on it!

It was no problem. For two farthings I could get a ha’penorth of broken biscuits. I could change three pennies for a thrupenny bit. Two of those made a tanner and two tanners made a bob. Up the scale was a two bob coin, and add a tanner to that and you got half a crown. I don’t remember a lot of crowns around in my day, but if you could get two you could change them for a brown ten bob note. Two ten bob notes got you a quid and then if you saved up a bit you could trade up for a fiver. Doctor’s fees were in Guineas, which were a quid with one bob added on. Copper coins were always bits but sliver coloured ones were pieces. Hence “bits and pieces”.

I resisted I’m still resisting. I called my children Bob, Florin and Penny. I wouldn’t change them for the world