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Archiver > WOOD > 1999-12 > 0945274945


From: James Douglas Barlow <>
Subject: Re: [WOOD-L] English Currency
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 16:22:25 +0000


Here are the English coins as I remember them.

A guinea was 21 shillings, written 21/-,and there was once an actual
gold coin for that amount, taken out of circulation in 1813, but the
term continued to be used in shop prices. The gold originally being from
Guinea in West Africa. I understand the term is still used in quoting
some professional fees. So anything priced 5 guineas would be £5. 5s, 0d

£1 was one pound, (paper money) or called familiarly a quid or written
£1/-/- The dashes representing shillings and pence.
10 shilling note (paper)= 10/- or familiarly 10 bob
5 shillings - 5/- = or called familiarly 5 bob, or a dollar
(it once equalled one American dollar)
Two and sixpence (2/6d) = 2 shillings and sixpence, half crown or
half-a-crown (there once was a coin called a crown, worth five
shillings) or familiarly - half a dollar
Two shillings - 2/- or a florin = was familiarly called 2 bob.
1 shilling = 1/- = a bob - with 20 of them to the £1.
6 pence or 6d - was called a tanner familiarly. The coin that relatives
would put in your waistcoat pocket when you went to show them your new
clothes at Whitsuntide.
The smallest coin was the threepenny bit (thruppenny bit). The sort of
coin you found in the foot of your christmas stocking along with all the
shiny new pennies on Christmas morning. I think parents saved them up.
Groats had disappeared, so I do not know anything about them.
One penny = 1d, 12 to the shilling, 240 to the pound.
A half-penny - ha'penny (pronounced haypenny), = ½d
A farthing was a quarter of a penny = ¼d, also known familiarly as a
meg if my memory serves me correctly.
(ceased to be legal tender in 1961, and got its name from an Old English
word feorthing meaning fourth-ing - Was it was once legal currency to
use pennies cut in halves and quarters?)
Douglas Barlow





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