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From: "Mary Longman" <>
Subject: Re: [ZA] Pounds, shillings and pennies
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 11:47:44 -0500
References: <Version.32.20021102024835.00e63df8@pop1.sympatico.ca>


What fascinating information, Anne, and how much of it brought back my
childhood in South Africa. I grew with sterling, converted to metric in Std
8, then left and went to Zambia - back to sterling. Came back to metric
South Africa, and then immigrated to Canada while it was still non-metric,
but at least had dollars and cents!

Life gets very confusing at times!!

mary

£.s.d. = Pounds, shillings and pennies
£.s.d. = Librae, Solidi, Denarii

A Denarii or Denarius was a Roman silver coin

Before 14 February 1961, South Africans used £.s.d.

Twenty shillings made 1 £
Twelve pennies made a shilling
A Half-crown was worth "two and six" (2 shillings and 6 pennies)
A Crown was 5 shillings

Three pennies were called a "ticky"
Six pennies were called "sixpence"
A shilling was called a "bob"
A guinea was one pound and one shilling

Some of the Afrikaans words were:

A "oortjie" was a "kwartpennie"
A "stuiwer" was a "halfpennie"
A "oulap" was slang for a penny
A "twalap" was slang for two pennies
A "daalder" was one shilling and six pennies or "one and six"

The term "daalder" came from the old riksdaalder, introduced by the Dutch
at the Cape.
A "riksdaalder" was worth 15 cents.

The Guinea was used as the basis on which the professionals (doctors,
dentists, lawyers, etc) based their rates.

For 1 penny you could buy 4 nickerballs.
A "one and six" could buy a big packet of Motto sweets (those sweets that
had sayings on them such as "I love you" or "Stay with me".

On 14 February 1961, Decimal Dan (played by Barry WIEHAHN) introduced South
Africans to the current South African currency (Rand and cents; 1 Rand =
100 cents), with a little jingle, composed by Dan HILL and Jimmy RAYSOND.
[This was before I was born, so I only know the words from a copy of the
Afrikaans jingle -
"Daan Desimaal, die rand-sent-man, Gee jou sente vir pennies net waar hy
kan"]

For one pound (£ 1.- 0 - 0) you got R2,00
A shilling got you 10 cents
10 shillings were equal to R1,00
A tickey got you 2½ cents
A sixpence was 5 cents
A Daalder = 15 cents
A Half-crown = 25 cents
A Crown = 50 cents
__________/\/*******\/\______
Anne Lehmkuhl http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/



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