I'm new to this so please excuse my ignorance.
Would a pre-decimal machine have inner dial 0-19 and outer 0-11 (and half and also at half intervals)?
Then would the ticket print the word 'Pence' (which I always associate with New Pence, or something else, like 3d or 3 pennies?
I've seen some machines over time that seem to be pre-decimal, but show 'Pence' on the ticket, and just wondered if it was a modified/updated pre-decimal to decimal.
Thanks
While there were some exceptions to all of the following...
The prototype of the Setright ticket machine (the 'Trambus') first saw daylight in 1922, but most operators couldn't cope with anything quite that radical at the time. Mr Henry Setright went away and came up with the more basic 'insert Setright' which sold in the 30s and early postwar years.
The typical Setright (the 'Setright Speed' / Mk 1 Setright / Setright SMB) was produced from 1947, so yes, most were pre-decimal.
Pre-decimal Setrights tended to be two varieties,
short range - a single fare wheel from 1/2d to 1 shilling in half penny units (the inner wheel was often used to set the fare stage) - some municipals preferred these (Edinburgh had the most), and some of the big operators (eg. City of Oxford) used them on city rather than rural services.
Some survived to be decimalised - some in 1 penny steps, occasionally in 5 p steps.
(broadly speaking, the way a Setright works, as long as the fares go up in exact multiples of the minimum fare, you can have whatever steps you like.)
the more common model was the long range - the inner wheel was shillings - usually 0 to 19, although some operators only specified it up to 12 shillings in the late 40s (think this matched the range offered by the insert setright, and they obviously thought fares would never go above 12 shillings...), the outer wheel was pence - usually 0 to 11 1/2 in half penny units.
Yes, machines generally printed the word 'SHILLINGS' vertically between the shillings and the pence numbers and the word 'PENCE' after the pence numbers.
The simplest form of decimalisation was to remove the 'shillings' print bar, and to stop the pence wheel going above 9 1/2, so you'd get a ticket showing (say) 7 - space - 5 pence.
Also, the most common original spec was to show a star instead of a zero - some operators never changed this after decimalisation, but many machines received newer print wheels that were a bit tidier for decimalisation.
Some were later converted to a fare range of up to 19.95 in 5p steps as inflation set in.
Some Mark 2 setrights, instead of showing the word 'PENCE' just showed 'p' - as did the Mk 2 extended range Setrights (the ones that had 3 fare wheels allowing fares up to 9.99 in 1p steps - and the less said about them the better...)
I have a few Mk 1 Setrights that never got as far as being decimalised - some operators had a surplus of machines by 1971, others were replacing their older Setrights with either Mk 2 Setrights or Almexes by then.
Examples of many Setright tickets - including many pre-decimal can be seen
here
The terms 'pence' and 'pennies' were quite standard pre decimalisation, e.g. "stop on a sixpence" "i gave him a fourpenny one" or slang phrases like "thruppeny bits" (this one is slightly rude!)
in the 70s, you'd still hear people talking about 'sixpence' (the coin which became worth 2 1/2 p was in circulation for quite a while) or something costing so many 'bob' (shillings) and some people would say (for example) "five pee" to make it clear they were talking about 5 new pence not "real money"
