Decimalisation today


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Looking at various other websites I've been reminded that today - February 15th - is the 50th anniversary of decimalisation in the UK in 1971. That makes me feel old because I can remember old money, and still add it up in my  head.

 

And no doubt Ben will have a few pre-decimal tales of helping his female customers adjust to the new way of counting.

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Strangely enough, as an accountant, I never got involved in the implementation of decimalisation. The company I worked for at the time, part of the Phillips Electrical Group, didn’t deal in trivialities like shillings and pence and all their accounting was done in ‘round pounds’.

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I was on day release at Trent from Boots QA Labs D10 Beeston on D day. That evening we paid our usual trip over to The Peach Tree ( now Lily Langtree's) for a tea time pint and sandwich and all the prices were in the new money although the old sixpences, shillings and two bobs were still in circulation. I can't remember if the old half crowns were still legal tender but the 10 Bob note was. The new 50p didn't come along for another year IIRC. Lots of the new prices had the odd half new pence included but that didn't last long before shops started rounding prices up. I still believe decimalisation kicked off modern inflation which plagued the UK economy for years afterwards. I remember getting a 25% pay rise in 1975. Mad.

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I was Area Manager for Marsdens/Farrands at the time   ......and recall doing i think a weeks training at Farrands or Marsdens on Alfreton road......even remember the man who gave the Training....a Mr Morris..........looking back all anyone needed to do was forget £ s d.......but everyone wanted to know the value ,,in what became known as ''Old Money''

                    Anyway after the training we went round all the shops explaining it to customers...i loved it with mostly the older ladies,,,first shop i did was Vernons on Denman street...the ladies were really confused but very funny with it.......what could be a better job...'Chatting and Laughing' with the Ladies'' in my 3 piece suit............

                         I will always think that 'DECIMILIZATION'' was a way to greatly increase lots of prices on Products in a 'Subtle' manor over the next few months............

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I was working in Cavendish/Woodhouse Default Department. As we did all the bad debts from England it was an absolute nightmare converting the court documents for new cases and ongoing ones and for the first few weeks we had to do old money and new money figures side by side. 
From what I can remember everything was rounded up not down!

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Just checked and it would seem the old half crown was withdrawn in 1969. The 50 pence piece was introduced shortly afterwards ready for D day. The brown ten bob note lasted until 1970.

Prior to decimalisation lots of people started to hang on to the old coins as mementos. The best ones to put aside were those dated before 1920 which were 95% silver. “Silver” coins dated between 1920 and 1947 were 50% silver. I remember getting a 1939 two bob (florin) in my change as late as 1977. Bank tellers used to look out for coins with a silver content and swap them over for post 1947 coins. A nice little earner and completely legit.

 

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yes Paradiddle your right about the coins, I can just remember them. I sure we were given 1p 2p 5p 10p mabe 50p if I'm not right some one will tell us.    or maybe 1/2p coin   the 1/2p  was i think 1d  the 2p+1/2 6d  10p was 2/- the 5p was 1/- (bob) and the 50p was the 10/- note. phew hope i have got it right.

 

ps still have got a ten bob note.

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The old predecimal silver coins converted to decimal in a relatively easy way as mary1947 says which is why they were left in circulation.

The new copper coins didn't convert as easily. To be precise the new penny was worth 2.4 old pennies making the new 2p equivalent to 4.8d and the new half penny worth 1.2d.

benjamin1945 wrote yesterday that people were always trying to compare the new with the old and got confused. £ s d should have just been forgotten and all would have been well he said.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The rounding up that went on was clearly exposed if you converted back to the old money price. Rounding up wasn't confined to 1/2ps. Higher value items started to increase in price too so something that had been 12/6 should have been 62.5p but quickly became 65p

Sorry to bang on about this but I really believe decimalisation kicked off modern price inflation which took many years to get back under control.

There were benefits from decimalisation. A pocketful of old pennies after a win on a fruit machine used to give you a noticeable limp as you walked and soon gave you a hole in your pocket too.

The old coins however did provide you with a history lesson of British monarchs although some of the old Victorian pennies were just a smooth copper disc with the image and date completely worn away. I used to think of my mum and dad when I had a 1915 or 1918 George V halfpenny. They were their years of birth and a ha'penny used to buy them a few sweets. For Christmas they would get an orange and a bright shiny new penny.

Like many others on here I can remember black jacks and fruit salad costing a penny for four in other words a farthing each. Happy days.

 

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The old ha'penny was the same size as 'two new pence' and it would work in telephone kiosks (or so I heard).

 

I did like the huge half crown (or 'two and a kick' as we called it).  Dad used to call it a half dollar (must have harked back to the days when a quid was worth four dollars).

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I worked in a corner shop Beer off at the time of the change over to decimal and I did have a lot of explaining to do especially with the old ladies who came in for their daily pint of sherry or ruby wine from the kegs. It got easier to explain as the day wore on. (generally involved a second pint/half pint). I think some people thought we were trying to diddle them. By the time they had finished grilling me, I ended up almost as confused as them.

 

We took over tenancy of the shop in 1973 for the next 9yrs and I was still having to try to explain the change over.

 

I have a little box full of old coins, among them there are three five pound notes with ink runs on them and quite a few old sixpences, farthings, silver threepences + the usual pennies and halfpennies etc. I cashed a lot of the ones with most silver in, as we had amassed quite a few from sales.

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3 hours ago, The Engineer said:

The old ha'penny was the same size as 'two new pence' and it would work in telephone kiosks (or so I heard).


And the shilling was the same size as a German Mark but worth a quarter of it, and fitted quite nicely into German cigarette machines. Allegedly. ;)

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