Hive Mind! Explain your crazy old pre-decimal currency (again)!

Grant Goggans · 31 July, 2009, 02:59:25 AM

The auld days of 240 pence to the pound has stumped me once again. I bought a small lot of the 1967-68 preschoolers' comic Pippin from a shop in Nashville. The cover price on each is 7D. What is a D? Does 7D mean 7/12 of a shilling?

Kerrin · 31 July, 2009, 06:55:17 AM

D was the old symbol for pence or a penny. As far as I can tell you are right in your other conclusions Grant.

Jim_Campbell · 31 July, 2009, 07:21:13 AM

Quote from: Kerrin on 31 July, 2009, 06:55:17 AM
D was the old symbol for pence or a penny. As far as I can tell you are right in your other conclusions Grant.

Yep. twelve pennies to the shilling, twenty shillings to the pound.

Cheers

Jim

TordelBack · 31 July, 2009, 09:40:11 AM

And thruppence hapenny'd buy you a firkin of porter.

I, Cosh · 31 July, 2009, 11:08:38 AM

Yup, "d" was commonly used to denote "pence." L/s/d, from the Latin "librae, solidi, denarii" for Pounds, shillings, pence.

Wiki if you're really interested

I, Cosh · 31 July, 2009, 11:09:47 AM

Quote from: The Cosh on 31 July, 2009, 11:08:38 AM
Yup, "d" was commonly used to denote "pence." Prices were generally written in L/s/d format, from the Latin "librae, solidi, denarii" for Pounds, shillings, pence.

Wiki if you're really interested

The Legendary Shark · 31 July, 2009, 01:53:34 PM

It's all quite straightforward, really:

The base unit was the Fragment, and there were 16 1/2 Fragments to the Penny (except on alternate Wednesdays, the Queen's (official) birthday and Empire Day when there were 19 3/4 Fragments to the Penny during daylight hours and just 7 Fragments to the Penny during the hours of darkness to dissuade prostitution). There were usually 42 Pennies to the Sub-Shilling (a Sub-Shilling being one eighth of a Pound divided by the month number plus 12 and minus the present Monarch's golf handicap). The Pound was made up of thirty two Randoms or a Squillit, depending on the population of India, and the White Fiver was nothing but a fiction invented by Bankers to foster the idea that everyone had the chance to save up enough to buy an elephant if they put their backs into it.

Didn't they teach you anything in school, dammit?

satchmo · 31 July, 2009, 01:59:14 PM

The White Fiver sounds like a British Empire version of Zorro

JOE SOAP · 31 July, 2009, 02:09:56 PM

Money was like the Kabbala back then, you had to be intiated before you could buy anything.

TordelBack · 31 July, 2009, 03:13:46 PM

QuoteMoney was like the Kabbala back then

Cripes, I didn't think Madonna was that old.

Grant Goggans · 31 July, 2009, 03:27:56 PM

Quote from: the_legendary_shark on 31 July, 2009, 01:53:34 PM
It's all quite straightforward, really:
...
Didn't they teach you anything in school, dammit?

I went to one of these here Amurriken schools which taught us new math, so I know that pie are square when they aren't round.

Buuut, seriously, thanks, guys!

TordelBack · 31 July, 2009, 04:10:54 PM

QuoteI went to one of these here Amurriken schools which taught us new math

The kind with ounces and pounds, feet and miles? The kind that's 200 years (and counting) out of date? And you, Sir, appear to have a lithp.

Grant Goggans · 31 July, 2009, 06:02:10 PM

Yeah, because I remember the last time I was in an English pub and had a deciliter of real ale.

TordelBack · 31 July, 2009, 06:16:31 PM

Touché, pussycat.

Devons Daddy · 01 August, 2009, 09:30:55 AM

this explains why the chaps at NASA did not need computers,

anyone whom can understand pre decimal coins is already a whizz kid maths wise before they even get to school!