bob, quid, guinea, sovereign, farthing
#1
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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?
#2
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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?"
#8
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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 The remaining pre-decimal coins were eventually withdrawn (in early 90's IIRC), and the government used that opportunity to mint new coinage in reduced sizes.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.