The pound won’t be round for much longer

[Tony oily bike]

The 28th March 2017 sees the launch of the new £1 coin.

For those of a certain age, it could well remind you of the old threepenny bit (and of course the cockney rhyming slang derivative!).

From an engineering viewpoint, have a look at this, http://www.thenewpoundcoin.com/

From a nostalgia/history viewpoint, this may be of interest
http://www.mankymonkeymotors.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=12430.msg104884#msg104884

[Manky Monkey]

God, I'm getting old. Yup, I remember the thruppeny bit -why were they called that? Never just thrupennies. Why "bit"?
When I was a kid the local barbers shop had a glass topped table with hundreds of Farthings under the glass. I used to try & count them all & would always lose count.
I mentioned these to a lad I was working with the other day. He'd never heard of thruppeny bits.
Don't be daft. When were you born?
1993.
What?! That was about 3 years ago!
No, it wasn't. He's 24. Bugger.

[mrhutch]

Don't be daft. When were you born?
1993.
What?! That was about 3 years ago!
No, it wasn't. He's 24. Bugger.

Had exactly the same thing on Friday speaking to an employee - she had a problem with moving into a new rental house and it's not ready...  I joked and said she could use my camper to live in for a week, and that it was probably older than her..  same reply, born in 1993! my bus is an '81 T3

And I don't remember the thruppeny bit but I've seen them..  I'm 41 so imperial is still a black art to me.

[Manky Monkey]

I'm 55, but now I feel like 101!
I've got T shirts older than some of the lads I work with.

[Tony oily bike]

Don't be daft. When were you born?
1993.
What?! That was about 3 years ago!
No, it wasn't. He's 24. Bugger.

Had exactly the same thing on Friday speaking to an employee - she had a problem with moving into a new rental house and it's not ready...  I joked and said she could use my camper to live in for a week, and that it was probably older than her..  same reply, born in 1993! my bus is an '81 T3

And I don't remember the thruppeny bit but I've seen them..  I'm 41 so imperial is still a black art to me.

Ahhhh...... imperial.

T’was a time when the ordinary measure of length, the inch, (25.4mm) was in used by all.
And if you were out anywhere without your trusty ruler/tape measure, it was about the length of the your thumb from knuckle to tip.

No prizes for working out what could be used to measure a foot!! (and for those with smutty minds, the answers in the name!)

No need for the SI Metre when 3 feet equalled a yard, good guestimates could be done out-in-the-field simply by placing your feet end to end three times, or if you were clever, you could ‘calibrate’ your pace to be a yard, so you could walk a number of yards (1760 yards if you wanted a mile).

Nautical miles are different, but then walking on water is kinda different to!


It was pretty clever if you needed smaller units of length too – take the standard inch and divide by 2, and 2 again etc etc so you get
1/2” , 1/4”, 1/8”, 1/16”, 1/32” & 1/64”

Again, an estimation of these fractions can be done without a graduated measuring stick (ruler / tape measure), just get a fine pencil (primitive implement used for writing (writing – primitive way of transferring information by making)..... you get the picture) and put a line at both ends of an inch, mark the middle, mark halfway and so on.

When we get to ‘modern’ (ahem) engineering measurements, 1/1000 inch is a typically quoted number, but if you work out that 25 of these is about the thickness of a thumb nail, its pretty handy cos many spark plug gaps are 25 thou.

Try doing that lot with SI (System Internationalle) units!!  

A ‘league’ (as in “20,000 leagues under the sea”) was generally considered to be 3 miles.
A 'fathom' (as you’d hear spoken by the submarine crews in B&W films) is 6 feet / 2 yards.
A 'chain' measures 66 feet / 22 yards - the length of a cricket pitch
A 'furlong' is 10 chains / 1/8 mile – used in horse racing.
A 'mile' is 8 furlongs / 1760yds (still used on our road signs).

The good thing with the old £sd was that a shilling could be divided to equally pay 12, 6, 4, 3, 2 or 1 persons.
The £ (which had 144 240 pennies in it) could be divided to equally pay 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 3, 40, 60, 80, 120 and 240 (that’s 15 19 times).
Go back in time a little more to when there were half pennies (pronounced ha’penny) there were 480 in a £.
Another step back and there were farthings (half a ha’penny) so now we have 960 to the £.
And yet another step back in time (pre 1870), there was the half-farthing, 1920 of these little blighters to the £.

Today’s decimal £ can only be divided by 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50 (which is only 8 times)

Info on why the £ is called a Pound  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sign

So endeth today’s lesson.............................  

(I'll set a test next week after I've sent out the homework!!  

[morrag]

And who is to blame for all that SI malarkey, your bloody Napoleon, that's who!!...............

[JayJay]

Brings back a lot of memories Tony.  However it was 240 pennies in a pound as there were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pennies in a shilling. Your maths are out a bit. 

I was 11 when decimal came in and the 2d Cadbury choc bar (remember the very thin one approx. 1" by 4") suddenly became 2p which was nearly 5d. Companies must have made fortunes and of course things just got dearer. I still convert sometimes just to remind myself what I am actually paying. 50p seems nothing now but when you think of it as the old 10 shillings, the 10 bob note was still a note you didn't like to part with.

[Tony oily bike]

Brings back a lot of memories Tony.  However it was 240 pennies in a pound as there were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pennies in a shilling. Your maths are out a bit. 

I was 11 when decimal came in and the 2d Cadbury choc bar (remember the very thin one approx. 1" by 4") suddenly became 2p which was nearly 5d. Companies must have made fortunes and of course things just got dearer. I still convert sometimes just to remind myself what I am actually paying. 50p seems nothing now but when you think of it as the old 10 shillings, the 10 bob note was still a note you didn't like to part with.

Thanks JJ  , got meself a bit confoozed. Now corrected 

[Tony oily bike]

Brings back a lot of memories Tony.  However it was 240 pennies in a pound as there were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pennies in a shilling. Your maths are out a bit. 

I was 11 when decimal came in and the 2d Cadbury choc bar (remember the very thin one approx. 1" by 4") suddenly became 2p which was nearly 5d. Companies must have made fortunes and of course things just got dearer. I still convert sometimes just to remind myself what I am actually paying. 50p seems nothing now but when you think of it as the old 10 shillings, the 10 bob note was still a note you didn't like to part with.

and who remembers when the £1 note changed into a beer voucher ?!!

[Tony oily bike]

Here's a table to show what we used to have

Coin                      Symbol, values and general info

Half farthing              a eigth penny an eighth penny. 1828–1856
Farthing                a quarter penny, last made in 1956
Penny (d)             The basic unit of currency from around 775 AD. (known as a copper)
Two pence                   Only made in 1797
Three pence          Silver until 1945 (known as a Joey), brass 1945-1967
Groat                           4 pence. Made from 1836 to 1888
Sixpence               6 pence (known as a tanner). The phrase “turning on a sixpence” came about because the coin was so small

Shilling (1/-)          12 pence (known as a bob). It had connotations with ‘taking the King’s shilling’ referring to the bonus, the equivalent of six days’ wages, that used to lure people into the army in the Napoleonic era.

Florin (2/-)            Two shillings. Made from 1849
Half crown (2/6)    Two shilling & six pence. 1816 - 1970
Double florin (4/-)    Four shillings. 1887 - 1890
Crown (5/-)          Five shillings. introduced as part of King Henry VIII's monetary reform of 1526. Last minted 1970

Half sovereign (10/-)   10 shillings. Gold (the value of gold increased meaning the gold value was higher than face value). First introduced in 1544

Sovereign (£)        1 pound. Gold (as above). Minted to follow on from the Guinea. The "English Gold Sovereign" was first issued in 1489. Prior to 1932 it was a fully circulating coin, today its a bullion coin

“Guinea”                   Minted between 1663 and 1814. This coin was nicknamed “guinea” because the gold used for minting it was brought from Guinea in Africa. Was initially a £1 coin but gold values rose and it became valued at £1 and 1 shilling (£1/1/-). The term is still used in horse racing and some auctions

[morrag]

Old, old, I'll show you old.......................

[Olds]

 
In answer to MM's question  about "bit" I believe it's to do with the old Spanish/ Mexican silver bullion coin, of eight reales (pieces of eight and all that) and dividing them into eight bits of one real each. The Yanks and others also have or had the habit of using the term 'bit' whe describing divisions of a Dollar.

thruppence 3d.   fuppence (groat) 4d,   tanner 6d,   bob 1/-                                        two bob bit (florin) 2/-,   half crown 2/6,    crown 5/-
half sovereign 10/-,   sov (sovereign) £1,   five pound

[Baychimp]

If you had a pounds worth of old pennys in your pocket as a kid,you needed both Belt and Braces.
As for L.s.d you don't get much of that for a pound these days.

[Manky Monkey]

  So why "D" for pence? Or "L" for pounds?

[BikerGran]

D stood for denarius, the old Roman penny-type coin.  Forgotten what the L was but doubtless google will inform me.

Yep, here it is (the Romans have a lot to answer for)

The L stands for the Latin word libra, the name of a Roman unit of weight, which also gave rise to the abbreviation lb for a pound as a measure of weight, and to the French word livre.