Funny Money! Librum, Solidus, Denarius does Decimal

Oh, this was trauma! What an upheaval! Life would never be the same again! Well, maybe the same, but more expensive. Or was that just general inflation? It was a big subject back then and tactics such as "quantative easing" were evils to avoid. However, February 15th, 1971 lives in infamy as the day all the moolah mutated. Even the chief of police got a set of new coppers. D-Day was here!

Not the Normandy Invasions, this was Decimal Day when the money all changed! Barely out of nappies, I could have told you that there were four farthings in a penny, or two ha'penny bits would add up to the same penny coin. Get twelve of those and you had a shilling. Twenty shillings and you had a pound (which was worth 240 of those shinny copper pennies). Twenty-one shillings for a guinea if you were being posh.

There were coins and notes in between. The hexagonal thru'ppeny bit and the little silver sixpence were objects of desire. And half a crown - or two shillings and sixpence - was a treat for special occasions. All the good toys in Timothy White's were three shillings and thruppence though.  

But change was in the air. Around my seventh birthday, I had a taste of the future that was related to moon landings or supersonic aircraft. I was given a 50p coin. That was ten shillings to you, squire! Somehow those 120 old pennies were scrunched down to 50 new pence. That coin was spent on another new-fangled innovation - felt-tip pens. Colouring was taking on a new dimension as well. They were my pride and joy and I lived in fear that they would dry out.

This was the sea change rolling in, by 1971 we would be going "Decimal" in the UK and Eire. The pound, still a bank note in those days, would only have 100 new pence, a shilling became 5p, two bob was now 10p, ten bob was 50p. £sd became £ and p. No more farthings though we had a new halfpenny. Suddenly you couldn't buy as many Black Jacks and Fruit Salads as you could before (Had my mind focused on the important stuff).

Apparently they considered changing pence to cents, but that was considered too foreign.

No going back, the space age was going to be decimal if not digital. Somehow this was going to make life easier. I think the jury is still out on that one. London Transport alone spent £80,000 on changing vending machines. 

Back in the day, I had a little presentation case which displayed the sparkly new coins. It quickly became the fallback for topping up the electricity meter. There would then be a little song and dance swapping the coins out when the meter man came to empty it. OK, that's a thing I'm happy to consign to the past.

Actually, decimalisation was first suggested in 1824. we were whinging about it then and have been whinging about it ever since.

Rare coins.

Fifty years of the 50p.