it was fifty years ago today! who can remember decimal day?

[isvicthere?]

Or as my dad used to say when I'd done or said something daft, "you're not a full shilling."

My uncle used to say, "that kid's a ha'penny short of a shilling."

 

[Mation]

I remember it well, it was the famous Kings Head. They used to have this antique till that rang the price up in old money and you then tried to figure out what the fuck you owed - though like you say, the bar staff would often do it for you, otherwise it could take forever. Must've been a pain in the arse to work there. It wasn't a regular haunt of mine but I think they were still doing it into the 90's.

I used to do a regular set with a ragtime jazz band there in the early-mid 90s. And still don't remember the money thing!

 

[Dr. Furface]

Is thrupenny bit still used as rhyming slang?

 

[cupid_stunt]

Is thrupenny bit still used as rhyming slang?

Not heard that in years, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was still used.

 

[Dr. Furface]

Not heard that in years, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was still used.

Me either, but I remember my dad saying it.

 

[brogdale]

960* of these to the pound! (till 31/12/1960)



You try telling the youngsters of today.....

*only legal tender to a shilling, though.

 

[Dom Traynor]

Strangely, Americans often refer to pennies rather than cents in their speech. Phrases like "not a penny more, not a penny less", "every penny counts", "penny pinching" and similar, are very much in common usage in the U.S. despite the fact that they haven't had pennies in their currency since 1793.

A one cent coin is a penny that's why.

 

[sojourner]

I remember being given a souvenir packet of shiny new decimal coins, which sat in my bedroom drawer until I was 15, and then got spent on fags.

 

[existentialist]

I remember being given a souvenir packet of shiny new decimal coins, which sat in my bedroom drawer until I was 15, and then got spent on fags.

I'm pretty sure we had to pay for ours and, familiar with the process of getting money out of my parents for school things, I just didn't bother asking. Although I wanted one of those sets more than anything in my 7-year-old world!

 

[Spymaster]

A one cent coin is a penny that's why.

Right. Informally. But that's weird, no? We can forgive the Irish their casual theft of our pennies given it’s only 20 odd years since they went over to stinky old Euros, but the yanks haven’t had a penny based currency for over 200 years. It’s high time they stopped this nonsense.

 

[Maggot]

Me too. I remember that dinner money was different, but don't really remember now what it had been like before.

Same here. I was 5. I remember everyone talking about the change, but don't remember using the old money.

 

[Doodler]

iirc a tanner was slang for sixpence. There was also the joey, which I think was the thruppenny bit, also sprowsie (maybe also sixpence). The crown and half crown must have had their own names but don't remember them.

 

[hippogriff]

iirc a tanner was slang for sixpence. There was also the joey, which I think was the thruppenny bit, also sprowsie (maybe also sixpence). The crown and half crown must have had their own names but don't remember them.

The half crown was also known as half a dollar

 

[danny la rouge]

Right. Informally. But that's weird, no? We can forgive the Irish their casual theft of our pennies given it’s only 20 odd years since they went over to stinky old Euros, but the yanks haven’t had a penny based currency for over 200 years. It’s high time they stopped this nonsense.

Sterling uses a fancy L for the pound sign, even though we stopped calling the columns LSD in 1971. D for denarii, coins we hadn’t used in these islands since the Roman occupation.

 

[weltweit]

I remember being given a souvenir packet of shiny new decimal coins, which sat in my bedroom drawer until I was 15, and then got spent on fags.

I think I had a pack like that .. much too young to remember details of the old currency though.

 

[two sheds]

I remember being given a souvenir packet of shiny new decimal coins, which sat in my bedroom drawer until I was 15, and then got spent on fags.

Ah the one in the snazzy cheap blue plastic folder? I think I've acquired one of those since.

 

[sojourner]

Ah the one in the snazzy cheap blue plastic folder? I think I've acquired one of those since.

That's the one! I only fessed up to my parents when I was in my mid 30s

 

[two sheds]

I doubt it's worth as much now as it was when you cashed it in

 

[sojourner]

I doubt it's worth as much now as it was when you cashed it in

And I did thoroughly enjoy those fags.

 

[petee]

Strangely, Americans often refer to pennies rather than cents in their speech. Phrases like "not a penny more, not a penny less", "every penny counts", "penny pinching" and similar, are very much in common usage in the U.S. despite the fact that they haven't had pennies in their currency since 1793.

this is true.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

I worked in an ironmonger's (Wightman and Parrish, Lewes) that summer. Nightmarish with people talking about 'the old money' that and many years to come. I sorted out in my head that 2/- , a florin, was 20p and everything more or less fell into place.



With 24% p.a inflation a few years later it was best not to dwell on 'How much is that in old money?'

 

[fishfinger]

I worked in an ironmonger's (Wightman and Parrish, Lewes) that summer. Nightmarish with people talking about 'the old money' that and many years to come. I sorted out in my head that 2/- , a florin, was 20p and everything more or less fell into place.

With 24% p.a inflation a few years later it was best not to dwell on 'How much is that in old money?'

Two shillings is 10p

 

[Dystopiary]

Also, a footballer with Cruyff-ian or Georgie Best-ian movement can still be said to "turn on a sixpence."

I've only heard that of someone who's pretty unpredictable, that they could turn (mood-wise) on a sixpence.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

Two shillings is 10p

You're right! It explains a lot

 

[existentialist]

Two shillings is 10p

The ironmongers went bankrupt in 1973.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

I didn't do any lasting damage

Our History | Wightman & Parrish | w-p.co.uk

So how has our family business survived through two World Wars, economic depressions and most challenging of all – changing times?

www.w-p.co.uk

VAT was another challenge a few years later. I worked there that summer too.

 

[Lancman]

There was none of this confusion until the “new” system was introduced, the existing system was known and understood by everybody. Except foreigners of course.

 

[Spymaster]

Two shillings is 10p

Not really. The two shilling coin (the florin) became the new 10p piece, but the shilling left the currency system so there was no equivalence. If you'd asked people how much two shillings were "in new money" soon after decimalisation I reckon they'd have said 24p. A shilling being 5p only made sense insofar as the coin itself remained valued at one twentieth of a pound, like the old shilling (12d in 240d - 5p in 100p).

 

[krtek a houby]

Throughout the ´70s the elder and parental generation could be reguarly be heard commenting on the price of things with an outraged, "That´s nine shillings in the old money!"

Worked with someone like that, up until she left the job, several years ago. She would have been 10 when decimalisation came in.

 

[Spymaster]

There was none of this confusion until the “new” system was introduced, the existing system was known and understood by everybody. Except foreigners of course.

I hadn't thought of that.