a quesiton about old english money
 

i was going through my parents' foreign change container and I found a one shilling and 2 shilling coin. (as well as a six pence and a 3 pence.) what are these now worth?

A shilling is 5p. The six pence is worth 3p and the truppeny bit 1p.

I think the Bank of England will still exchange the money.

I don't imagine the Old Lady
of Threadneedle Street would
be too chuffed about doing the
paperwork over the equivalent
of under 10p! LOL

Keep the coins or give them
to a child for a curiosity.

Rob

If three pence is "thruppence," why isn't a New Pence "nuppence?"

My girlfriend at the time the new coins were introduced did indeed call them nuppence.

It didn't stick. Neither did she.

Save the 6 pence to give to a bride for luck on here wedding day. You put it in your shoe!

or save the tanner (sixpence) for the Christmas pudding.

You might (or might not) like to know that we Irish did not call the sixpenny coin a tanner. We called it a tosser. A half crown (a coin worth two shillings and sixpence) was "two and a tosser".

Quid is easy enough - but why was a shilling a "bob?"

I have a Churchill commemorative crown (circulated condition) in my change box. Is it worth anything?

"A pound comprised twenty Shillings, commonly called 'bob', which was a lovely old slang word. It was 'bob' irrespective of how many shillings there were: no-one ever said 'fifteen bobs' - it would have been said as 'fifteen bob'. The origin of the word 'bob' meaning Shilling is not known for sure, although the usage certainly dates back to the late 1700s. My favourite is suggested in Brewer's 1870 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable in that 'bob' could be derived from 'Bawbee', which was 16-19th century slang for a half-penny, in turn derived from: French 'bas billon', meaning debased copper money (coins were commonly cut to make change); and/or the Laird of Sillabawby, a 16th century mintmaster. Perhaps there is also a connection with the church or bell-ringing since 'bob' meant a set of changes rung on the bells. This would be consistent with one of the possible origins and associations of the root of the word Shilling, (from Proto-Germanic 'skell' meaning to sound or ring). Also perhaps a connection with a plumb-bob; (the association with another heavy piece of metal), made of lead and used to mark a vertical position in certain trades, notably masons. 'Bob a nob', in the early 1800s meant 'a shilling a head', when estimating costs of meals, etc. In the 18th century 'bobstick' was a shillings-worth of gin. In parts of the US 'bob' was slang used for the US dollar coin."

http://www.businessballs.com/moneyslanghistory.htm refers

The first time the lady at the tea counter at Euston asked me for thruppencehapennyfarthing, I told her I wasn't thirsty any more.

>>"two and a tosser"<<

Be careful saying this on our side of the water...! My Dad used to call half a crown "two and a kick"; or half a dollar (from the days when a US dollar was worth 5s - four dollars to a pound, who'd have thought it, eh?)

Now, in Scotland, I believe "bawbee" is or was used for some coin - I don't remember if it was a shilling or sixpence.

I remember being in London in July 1971 for the first time about two months and a few days after d(ecimal) day...

To make the transition easier, the new coins were exactly the same size as some of the old coins...the one shilling coin became 5p...the 2 shilling coin became 10p (and it was humongeously large)...the 6 penny coin (1/2 shilling) became 2.5 p...the 50p coin was new (they didn't have a coin for 10 shillings; rather it was a paper bill as I remember although don't hold me to that, I never saw it)...

I remember getting on the tube for a 5p fare, giving the clerk a £1 banknote (yes they existed at the time) and getting 95p in 9 two shilling or 10p coins and one 5p coin...then I knew why the currency was called the pound...boy were those coins heavy and big...

After visiting London a few times in the early and mid 70's, I never got back to London till 1996 and the difference in the size of the coins was amazing.

Also during that earlier period, I visited Ireland (Republic of) and British coins and Irish coins were interchangeable (it was just before the punt was separated from British currency)...

Finally, I remember a great line in a Matt McGinn folk song called the pill when he talked about buying the pill for 15 bob and 10, never knew what that meant for a long time.

Sometime in the 1960s I was told a term that meant one pound and one shilling. I thought it was Quid, but it seems that my memory is more shot than I thought it was! Was there a term for one pound, one shilling? Thanks.

Quid=pound, bob=shilling

A guinea was an actual coin (not just a term) worth £1 1s.

One pound, one shilling was/is a guinea.

Still used in the horse racing world.

The guinea coin was not used after 1816. It is still a term used for 21 shillings.
According to Wikipedia the coin's value varied from 1 pound to 30 shillings according to the price of gold. And it got it's name from Guinea in Africa, from whence the gold came.

The guinea was commonly used for posh shops to make products seem posh: so furniture, household appliances and clothes "for best" would be priced in guineas. On the other hand, if you wanted to signal "discount", you pulled the equivalent of the £4.99 stunt and labelled it £4 19/6, even if there wasn't that great a difference from the 5 gns product.

Enough of this.
What are my Kennedy half dollars worth? ;-)