Decimalisation.

[Kremlin Stooge]

An elderly maiden aunt always used to get those every year, just before she walloped us at Pit if anyone can remember that, and never returned them. I think we found a small trove when clearing her flat after the funeral.

I can remember playing Pit. If we’re talking about the same card game, there were cards that represented different staple commodities and the idea was to corner the market in a commodity by holding all the cards for it. The Bear card was to be avoided at all costs, while the Bull card was well worth hanging onto. It was a game usually only played on Christmas or Boxing Days, after enough seasonal lubricant had been consumed to actually make it seem like a good idea, especially if the TV schedules weren’t delivering sufficient snoozing material!

 

[Bald Rick]

I can remember playing Pit. If we’re talking about the same card game, there were cards that represented different staple commodities and the idea was to corner the market in a commodity by holding all the cards for it. The Bear card was to be avoided at all costs, while the Bull card was well worth hanging onto. It was a game usually only played on Christmas or Boxing Days, after enough seasonal lubricant had been consumed to actually make it seem like a good idea, especially if the TV schedules weren’t delivering sufficient snoozing material!

I’m glad you clarified what ‘Pit’ is / was. When I read @edwin_m being walloped at Pit, I assumed it was a reference to being subject to corporal punishment, near a coal mine, in a north Midland dialect.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Been around for over a century, apparently.

 

[Bevan Price]

Oh right, sorry I missed that. So they remained still valid alongside the 12 sided version, although I dont think I ever saw one in my loose change. I think I saw more in Christmas puddings than in real life...

Most people preferred the 12 sided 3d pieces; the silver version was inconveniently small (and easily lost) -- slightly smaller than the decimal 1/2p coin.

 

[edwin_m]

I can remember playing Pit. If we’re talking about the same card game, there were cards that represented different staple commodities and the idea was to corner the market in a commodity by holding all the cards for it. The Bear card was to be avoided at all costs, while the Bull card was well worth hanging onto. It was a game usually only played on Christmas or Boxing Days, after enough seasonal lubricant had been consumed to actually make it seem like a good idea, especially if the TV schedules weren’t delivering sufficient snoozing material!

That's the one. I'm traumatised to this day.

 

[Snow1964]

We had only just learnt to do sums at school in £sd when they started decimalisation! I recall my parents said everything went up in a huge leap at the time. School dinners were 8s9d a week in 1969, 9s11d in 1970 but on decimalisation shot up to 60p (12 shillings) a week. Same for groceries and some things went from eg 8d (3 1/2p) to 8p (1s7d).

I remember taking dinner money to primary school in old matchboxes which had a brown or gold sticker wrapped around.

I started in January 1970 (it was start of term after 5th birthday then), so must have had old money initially, but only remember the 60p when I was 6 or 7

Think it was usually a 50p and either a 10p or 2 x 5p as the 20p coin didn’t exist until 1980s

 

[Calthrop]

Most people preferred the 12 sided 3d pieces; the silver version was inconveniently small (and easily lost) -- slightly smaller than the decimal 1/2p coin.

And now we've got the dratted decimal 5p; which is, it strikes me, no bigger than the silver 3d: which I just remember in circulation (rarely) -- the 5p tiny and annoying, for the same reasons. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

 

[Inversnecky]

I’m glad you clarified what ‘Pit’ is / was. When I read @edwin_m being walloped at Pit, I assumed it was a reference to being subject to corporal punishment, near a coal mine, in a north Midland dialect.

Ditto!

The one thing that annoys me as I get older, and less dextrous, is that coins seem to get ever smaller and fiddlier. The old 10p coin now would seem massive.

But if you’ve seen a two hundred plus year old ‘Cartwheel penny’, you’ll know what massive was!

I had an aunt who even in the early 1980s still talked about ‘50 New Pence’.

At the time people thought there was going to be a lot of confusion but the decimal money (100p to £!) is far easier for children and foreigners to learn rather that 12d to 1/- and 20/- to £1.

When I delve into Hamnett’s British Railway Track, I feel much the sense of bewilderment at all the tables of feet and inches!

 

[plugwash]

Though the last change to the diameter of a british coin was over 20 years ago. The 5p reduced in size in 1990, the 10p reduced in size in 1992 and finally the 50p in 1997.

In more recent years they have decided to reduce the cost of coin production by changing the composition rather than the diameter (and actually increasing the thickness slightly, presumablly to maintain the weight).

 

[Mojo]

Channel Islands banknotes not legal tender on the mainland in England, but could always be paid in at the bank / post office. Similarly with Scottish, Northern Ireland and Isle of Man banknotes. Shopkeepers might possibly accept them but not obliged to do so. Channel Islands coins, however, not generally accepted but could invariably be used in vending machines or mixed in with bags of mainland coinage as they effectively weighed the same.

I remember when I was younger getting Channel Islands coins quite regularly in my change from shops and always having a disagreement with the staff when I asked it to be exchanged for a UK coin. They almost always used to argue back and ask what the problem was “because it has the Queen on the back.” I was also tempted to ask them if they’d accept New Zealand currency as well given its only worth about half as much.

 

[Westcountryman]

I remember when I was younger getting Channel Islands coins quite regularly in my change from shops and always having a disagreement with the staff when I asked it to be exchanged for a UK coin. They almost always used to argue back and ask what the problem was “because it has the Queen on the back.” I was also tempted to ask them if they’d accept New Zealand currency as well given its only worth about half as much.

I wonder what would have happened if you had tried to buy something with Channel Island coins.

 

[PeterY]

Officially yes, but I never saw any either, other than in a Christmas pud or Christmas trifle.

In a similar vein, you scarcely ever saw Victorian GB silver (or bronze) coins in general circulation, except for the very occasional and extremely worn down specimens.

I never saw a sliver 3d in use but I have one somewhere.
We must've been rich , my dad used to put a 6d in the Christmas pud.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I wonder what would have happened if you had tried to buy something with Channel Island coins.

On the Channel Islands, obviously it would have been fine, here on the GB mainland, you might well have had the shopkeeper refuse your purchase.

"Oi, mate, can't take that, it's funny money!"

 

[Mojo]

On the Channel Islands, obviously it would have been fine, here on the GB mainland, you might well have had the shopkeeper refuse your purchase.

"Oi, mate, can't take that, it's funny money!"

I always suspected that the reason the coins that I got as change ended up in the checkout in the first place was because the similarity of the coins.

 

[skyhigh]

Copy of a poster I saw online today regarding decimalisation of rail fares. Might be of interest to someone!

(Image shows a poster entitled "By D Day all fares will be priced in the new £p in place of the old £sd. The £ part of any fare will be just the same in new £p as in old £sd.")

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Interesting that, in it suggests that some fares weren't available immediately pre-decimalisation, e.g. 2s 1d, 2s 2d, 2s 4d, 2s 8d and 2s 11d.

 

[A Challenge]

On the Channel Islands, obviously it would have been fine, here on the GB mainland, you might well have had the shopkeeper refuse your purchase.

"Oi, mate, can't take that, it's funny money!"

One of my friends had an Isle of Man penny just over a year ago now (despite not having gone to the island, so must have been change), but, despite them not having any interest in keeping it, didn't want me to let me swap it with them - if only I'd remembered the coins weren't legal tender they might not have minded it, not that I imagine they would have had much trouble spending it!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Guessing that Manx and Channel Islands decimal coinage is minted to similar specifications as that on the mainland (same metal used, coin size, weight?)

 

[Kremlin Stooge]

Guessing that Manx and Channel Islands decimal coinage is minted to similar specifications as that on the mainland (same metal used, coin size, weight?)

I believe, but happy to be corrected, that those jurisdictions sub-contract the work to the Royal Mint. IIRC Jersey and Guernsey use different designs for their coinage, with ‘Bailiwick of Jersey’ and ‘States of Guernsey’ appearing on the respective designs. I don’t know if they are officially interchangeable but in practice there’s a fair bit of mixing between the two islands. Not sure about the smaller islands, got a feeling Alderney also issues its own coinage.

 

[Inversnecky]

I used to see lots of Irish and Channel Islands 10p given in change in the late 1970s/80s, which started an interest in coins.

I’ll never forget some American visitors who in the half an hour it took them to get to us from the airport, had been given counts from about three different countries by the taxi man, etc.

 

[S&CLER]

I once read an essay by W.B Yeats, who as a senator in Dail Eireann in the 1920s served on the committee that selected the designs for the new coinage of the Irish Free State, as it then was. He made the point that had never occurred to me, that it was essential to have a weight balance between obverse and reverse, to ensure a tossed coin had an equal chance of landing heads or tails.

 

[A Challenge]

I believe, but happy to be corrected, that those jurisdictions sub-contract the work to the Royal Mint. IIRC Jersey and Guernsey use different designs for their coinage, with ‘Bailiwick of Jersey’ and ‘States of Guernsey’ appearing on the respective designs. I don’t know if they are officially interchangeable but in practice there’s a fair bit of mixing between the two islands. Not sure about the smaller islands, got a feeling Alderney also issues its own coinage.

I am not sure about that, according to the British Museum, coins in 1986 at least was produced in Jersey. Is this still the case?

 

[Bevan Price]

Ditto!

The one thing that annoys me as I get older, and less dextrous, is that coins seem to get ever smaller and fiddlier. The old 10p coin now would seem massive.

But if you’ve seen a two hundred plus year old ‘Cartwheel penny’, you’ll know what massive was!

I had an aunt who even in the early 1980s still talked about ‘50 New Pence’.


When I delve into Hamnett’s British Railway Track, I feel much the sense of bewilderment at all the tables of feet and inches!

You should be relieved that you will no longer encounter some of the many other measurement units that are no longer in regular use, e.g.
barleycorn, rod, link, gill, quart, etc., although horsey people still use furlongs (220 yards). However I suppose anyone dealing with USA will have to beware that our (UK) ton (2240 lb.) differs from theirs (2000 lb.), and neither equal the metric tonne.

See:

Imperial units - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

and:

English units - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[daveinstoke]

I got paid 10 bob per week bottling milk, & as a young lad could buy model kits etc.... happy times .

 

[Gloster]

The earliest price I can remember is Airfix Series 1 kits: 1/9, but soon after I had bought my first two, they went up to 1/11. They are now £5.99.

The first two were a Harvard and a Fieseler Storch. The latter was not a wise choice for a first model, not with that undercarriage.

 

[Westcountryman]

I just don't understand how the Americans came to have different units to us with the same name. I understand that it makes sense for a hundredweight to be 100 pounds, but why does it differ from an Imperial Hundredweight. How many pounds are in a US ton. Is it 20 US hundredweights, ie 2000 pounds? This calculates as 1 US ton = 0.89 Imperial tons, which is the conversion factor google gives.

Which of the three different types of ton do the aircraft industry use? The units and the confusion they cause could be disastrous. You only have to look at the story of the Gimli Glider to see what could happen. It's bad enough trying to calculate car mpg when the US gallon is only 84% of an Imperial Gallon.

 

[A Challenge]

I just don't understand how the Americans came to have different units to us with the same name. I understand that it makes sense for a hundredweight to be 100 pounds, but why does it differ from an Imperial Hundredweight. How many pounds are in a US ton. Is it 20 US hundredweights, ie 2000 pounds? This calculates as 1 US ton = 0.89 Imperial tons, which is the conversion factor google gives.

Which of the three different types of ton do the aircraft industry use? The units and the confusion they cause could be disastrous. You only have to look at the story of the Gimli Glider to see what could happen. It's bad enough trying to calculate car mpg when the US gallon is only 84% of an Imperial Gallon.

I believe that aircraft generally use thousands of pounds (in the USA) or thousands of kilograms (elsewhere), and I think that any use of tonnes is probably in metric.

 

[SHD]

I just don't understand how the Americans came to have different units to us with the same name.

They have a different language to yours with the same name

 

[Ediswan]

I just don't understand how the Americans came to have different units to us with the same name.

Britain used to have multiple different gallons for different things. Britain settled on using the ale gallon for everything. US settled on the smaller wine gallon. Both subsequenly tweaked and standardised.

 

[edwin_m]

You should be relieved that you will no longer encounter some of the many other measurement units that are no longer in regular use, e.g.
barleycorn, rod, link, gill, quart, etc., although horsey people still use furlongs (220 yards). However I suppose anyone dealing with USA will have to beware that our (UK) ton

Not to mention the chain, which is in daily use on the UK rail network.