15th February 1971

[zabado]

Before that date we had Pounds,shillings & pence. (£. s. d.).
If pound = £
shilling = s
why the "d" for pence ,surely it should have been "p".

[mike11111]

As has been said, crowns were purely commemorative coins and not in general circulation, although they were strictly legal tender. Half crowns, on the other hand, were commonplace. If I ever used the term 'half-a-dollar' my mother would tell me off, saying,"Don't say that, it's common! Say either half a crown or two and sixpence."

[ABerrant]

That is not accurate. Crowns had been minted for general circulation since 1526, albeit perhaps not in the vast numbers as farthings, ha'pennies, pennies etc. because of its large physical size and value (especially when speaking of centuries past).

Crowns only became classed as "commemorative" with the 1935 issue for King George V’s Silver Jubilee.

[zabado]

jno. It wasn't cosmopolitan.I was brought up a working class lad in West Yorkshire and sorry boxtops I know it well too. I was born in 1952. Arf a dollar is arf a crown.

[sandyRoe]

And two shillings was a Florin, a three penny bit was three dee

[fredpuli47]

And there was still a farthing after the War. That was worth one quarter of a penny ! IIlustrating a rather strained sense of humour, the design of this tiny coin had a wren on the back, because the wren is a tiny bird. In similar vein, the threepenny bit ['thruppenny bit'] had a thrift plant on the back.
And in those days old people called a sixpence a 'joey', originally the name for a groat (4d). They must have been older than they looked!. Everyone else would call it a tanner.

[boxtops]

I found a farthing the other day in a box, pretty little coin, along with a threepenny bit - commonly known as thruppence.

[mike11111]

Some earlier florins bore the inscription "one florin" as opposed to "two shillings". It was introduced in 1849 as a first step on the road to decimalisation, which only took another 122 years. Whatever the merits or otherwise of decimalisation, I miss the sense of carrying history around in my pocket. Until 1971 it was not unusual to have a pocket full of coins dating back to 1860 (the Queen Victoria 'bun penny'). We had coins of six reigns (although those of Edward VIII were by definition very rare). I remember as a small boy carefully scrutinising every penny for the date 1933, as only six were minted in that year, of which two were unaccounted for and were said to be worth a fortune.

[jno]

were there any Edward VIII coins at all? I seem to recall a handful of sixpences escaped into the country but nothing much else.

[fredpuli47]

Hunting around the net shows that some Edward VIII proof sets of coins i.e. all the coins, perfectly finished, in a case, were prepared and one has appeared at auction. Other escapees are sovereigns. half-crowns, shillings and sixpences. No coin was issued in to circulation.
The dodecagonal, 'brass'. threepenny bit, introduced to replace the silver threepence, was first made for years 1936-7 but. those made did not bear Edward VIII's portrait, only the date of 1937.

[jno]

thanks, fredpuli. Apparently there is also some Maundy money available, though I'm never quite sure if that counts as real money.

[VHG]

The day we went decimal I went into the bank and bought a pounds worth of halfpennies, and pounds worth of 1p and a pounds worth of 2p.

They came in their plastic covering (all the halfpennies in one pack etc).

I still have them, they still have their plastic covering on and have never been touched by human hand.

I wonder if they are worth anything.

[sammmo]

about 3 knicker..

[THECORBYLOON]

jno, the Maundy money is legal tender and comes in 1p, 2p, 3p and 4p denominations. The pre-decimal Maundy coins are legal tender too, by the way.

[jno]

thanks, TCL. I've never actually received any from the till in Boots and I assume that in practice it is kept as a souvenir or investment.

[LoftyLottie]

Just thinking now of my early schooldays when I could buy a chew for a farthing - dear little coin with that little wren on the back.

[askyourgran]

I have two or three commemorative 5/- crowns, my grandmother used to buy them for us, I've also kept an old tanner 6d, a farthing 1/4d, a threepenny bit 3d, and a few old pennies.

[jno]

I've got an old penny with King Canute on it, but I must admit I didn't get it when it was new.

[zabado]

Hey ! Loftylottie that's right,I remember when you could get four black jacks,four fruit salad or four sports mixtures for a penny ( 1d ). What about the ha'penny liquorice root, or a penny refresher.

[mike11111]

I saw some ha'penny liquorice roots in the chemists' last week. They were 50p each, i.e 240 times the original price.