Pre-decimal coins in circulation during the 1960s

[Galapagos]

I've just been re-reading the Bank of England's booklet, "All Change", about the introduction of decimal currency in the UK. One of the photos (and I reproduce here only about a quarter of it) shows a big pile of pre-decimal change. One of the bonuses of my childhood was that coins from all reigns since Victoria (except of course, Edward VIII) were still in circulation. Admittedly, not all reigns were evenly distributed through the denominations. Victoria was by then only to be found on the penny and halfpenny - but in two different effigies: her "bun head" and what I call "mourning head", her final effigy where she is veiled as if in mourning for Prince albert.

It was this variety of reigns and designs that first attracted my attention as a child and interested me in coin collecting. Then of course there were the mysterious Latin abbreviations: "FID DEF", "IND IMP", etc. In 1971 large parts of this variety vanished when we "went decimal". But sixpences, shillings and two shilling coins were kept in service as two-and-a-half pence, five pence and ten pence respectively. This practice must have confused the tourists almost as much as the pre-decimal system itself.

[chrisild]

This practice must have confused the tourists almost as much as the pre-decimal system itself.

Possibly so. Then again, the early decimal coins - the 5p and 10p pieces issued in 1968 - apparently confused the British.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/23/newsid_2523000/2523895.stm

(Edit) That article is from a BBC series of info texts regarding coins and currency. This timeline --
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/flash/flashscroll.swf?myfile=/onthisday/hi/themes/society/business/uk_currency/timeline.txt
-- looks awful by itself but has many clickable links.

Christian

[Galapagos]

Some of the older people were confused by them, but I remember that at school a few maths lessons were devoted to preparing us schoolchildren for the new system. It did make arithmetic that much easier. I still remember, though, that old women in the 1980s would still complain that we should bring back "the old money", as they were convinced that inflation didn't exist in predecimal days!

[translateltd]

It was this variety of reigns and designs that first attracted my attention as a child and interested me in coin collecting.

You've largely summarised my own start in coin collecting - and language study.  I remember lying on the carpet as a five-year-old, arranging pennies by all the different reigns and trying to make sense of all the Latin abbreviations.

[Galapagos]

Fortunately my dad knew what the abbreviations meant. Years later, some American visitors at work were asking what the edge inscriptions meant on our pound coins. I was the only one who knew, which surprised me. My work colleagues seemed to think I was in possession of some rare talent. It just shows how little the average person knows or cares about the coins they use.

[Figleaf]

Take this one for size: GEORG. III D. G. MAG. BRIT. FR. ET HIB. REX F. D. BR. & L. DUX S. R. I. A. TH. & EL.

Peter

[Galapagos]

I certainly had to look up parts of *that: "Brunsvicensis et Lunenburgensis Dux, Sancti Romani Imperii Archi-Thesaurarius et Elector".

It's what's known in colloquial English as "a bit of a mouthful".

[Figleaf]

[applause][/applause]

Peter