bob, quid, guinea, sovereign, farthing
 

All this talk of the Euro makes me think of my old questions about English money. The questions come from reading books or seeing movies or plays and not from traveling to England (which I haven't done for many years), but I've never gotten it straight what a bob is, or a quid, or a guinea, or a sovereign, or a farthing, and their relationship to the British pound. Can someone settle this for me?

Well a quid is and was a pound. A bob was a shilling and there were 20 of them to a pound. A shilling is equivalent to five pence in today's money. There were twelve pence in a shilling and four farthings to a penny. A sovereign was a golden pound coin. A guinnea was worth one pound and one shilling. Even when guinnea coins no longer existed certain payments e.g. for horses and bespoke suits would be in guinneas.<BR>People of my age can still remember the joys of doing sums at school, "How much would I pay for 16 pounds of potatoes at threepence-three farthings a pound?"

A "bob" was slang for a shilling, there were 20 shillings in a pound. A "quid"- slang for a pound; a "guinea" was 21 shillings; a "sovereign" - don't remember; and a "farthing" was a quarter of a penny, there were 12 pennies in a shilling.

Lets not forget the joey, (silver 3 pence), the florin (2 shillings) and the crown (5 shillings).

All these words dropped out of usage with decimalisation of our currency in, I think, 1969, apart from quid, which is still slang for pound.<BR><BR>Some words still appear in common phrases, eg "that bloke Bill Gates, I bet he's worth a bob or two".

not to forget the much lamented half crown (2s 6d). I used to get one of those for my pocket money.

david you are giving away info about your age there!<BR><BR>LOL<BR><BR>Kavey

When decimalisation came in 1971, a lot of the old coinage became invalid, except for three. They were retained because their worth was equal to exact decimal values. Two shillings was worth 10p, a shilling was 5p, and a half shilling was 2-1/2p. They minted the decimal equivalents ('new pence') in exact sizes, except for half shillings, which was allowed to lapse. The remaining pre-decimal coins were eventually withdrawn (in early 90's IIRC), and the government used that opportunity to mint new coinage in reduced sizes. Of all the coins minted for the D-Day, only 2p and 1p coins survive in the same size, and 1/2p has been abolished altogether.