How long should the shilling and florin have circulated after decimalisation ?

Started by <k>, August 22, 2017, 01:31:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

When should the shilling and florin have been demonetised ?

They were demonetised in 1990 and 1993 respectively, and that was right
2 (22.2%)
They should never have been kept on after decimalisation
0 (0%)
1972: one year after decimalisation
1 (11.1%)
1974: three years after decimalisation - ample time for everybody to have adapted
1 (11.1%)
June 1980 - the same time as the sixpence
1 (11.1%)
1982, when "NEW" was removed from the decimal coins
0 (0%)
Mid-to-late 1980s
0 (0%)
It was irrelevant to me - as a collector, I enjoyed seeing them in circulation
3 (33.3%)
I am neutral on the matter
0 (0%)
Don't know
1 (11.1%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: August 30, 2017, 01:31:41 PM

<k>

The 5p and 10p were made the same size as the shilling and florin, being equivalent to those two, respectively, in value. This aided the transition to decimalisation and enabled the shilling and florin to double as 5p and 10p until the early 1990s.

Here are my objections to this policy:


  • It entrenched the weight-to-value ratio
  • The weight-to-value ratio made the UK's coins heavier than necessary
  • The coins looked unaesthetic and out of place in the decimal system
  • The coins often confused tourists, children and other young people
  • Their over-long retention made Britain appear inefficient and backward-looking

Ideally, coins should be instantly intelligible within their environment. These predecimal remnants, or decimal impostors, were not. Furthermore, their retention meant that the 5p and 10p had to be made just as large and heavy as they were. Throughout the 1970s, more and more 5p and 10p coins had to be produced due to inflation and the lack of a 20p coin. By the end of the 1970s, problems were piling up for the Mint, the business world, and the public, partly as an unintended result of these initial bad decisions. See: The Royal Mint's 1979 suggestions for the future of the coinage.

When the Mint wanted to tackle these problems, it had to phase them. The proposed solution to one problem had to take into account the other problems or anticipate the date when they would be tackled. Choices were therefore constrained. Both the Treasury and the Mint wanted a pound coin of around 28 mm, but that slot was already taken by the large 10p. The pound coin ended up small but (too) thick and heavy, as it had to be squeezed into a size slot between the nearby penny and large 5p.

If the Mint had produced a 20p from the start, to bridge the gap between the 10p and 20p, and ditched the weight-to-value ratio, the 5p and 10p could have been made smaller from the start. They could still have been introduced in 1968, sharing the till spaces with the larger shillings and florins, whose monetary value they shared. The large 50p would then started smaller, to match the smaller 5p and 10p. The size reductions of the 1990s would then not have been needed.

By the 1970s, with the predecimal coins having been demonetised by 1974 (according to my desired alternative history, with its more efficient and radical plans), only the demonetisation of the ½p would have remained, along with the introduction of a pound coin. The pound coin could then have been introduced much earlier and made slimmer and lighter. The Mint's policy makers, free of any other problems, could then have concentrated on introducing the 2 pound coin much earlier, probably two years after the pound coin. We would not then have had that ridiculous 15 year gap between the pound coin and the 2 pound coin, during which millions of heavy pound coins were minted.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

FosseWay

None of the options covers my view.

There was no good reason to get rid of them until the specifications changed; they served a perfectly good purpose and saved money and resources. As discussed previously, I think the specifications should have changed earlier, but that is a different question.

The lifetime of a coin in circulation is upwards of 50 years in many cases. Unless there are clear reasons for removing them from use, such as resizing, abolition of the denomination, serious technical problems (as with the round pound forgeries) or at a pinch major political changes where no change would mean unwanted symbols remaining on the post-change circulation currency, then I think coins should continue in use until such a circumstance arises or they just get worn out.

<k>

I disagree, because we had adopted an entirely new system, and those denominations did not fit. They caused confusion, and their retention suggested a lack of commitment to full decimalisation on Britain's part. Sometimes it is necessary to incur a cost, to ensure that a system is maximally coherent, efficient and logical.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Alan71

But it wasn't an entirely new system.  Only the bronze coins were new, everything else matched pre-decimal values.

The need to re-size the 5p and 10p fell by the wayside when the 20p was introduced.  At that point, no more 10p coins were required.  If the re-sizing never took place we'd probably still have 1981 10p coins as the newest ones in circulation!  5p is a different matter as, although it wasn't being issued for six straight years in the 1980s, it made a comeback in 1987.

Decimalisation was a massive project and the Royal Mint had to move home partly because of the numbers of new coins required.  Adding a complete reissue of the 5p and 10p into the mix surely would have been impossible?

Anyway, as I've said elsewhere, Australia and New Zealand (and probably others) kept the shilling and florin sizes as the basis for their decimal coinage.  What the UK did wasn't that big a deal really, and I can hardly take seriously the suggestion that it showed a lack of commitment to full decimalisation.

<k>

Quote from: Alan71 on August 22, 2017, 09:50:39 PM
But it wasn't an entirely new system.  Only the bronze coins were new, everything else matched pre-decimal values.

But the sixpence, shilling and florin retained their predecimal denominations. That couldn't and wouldn't change. It wasn't helpful to foreigners and children, because it subverted the system. Most of them had had no experience of the predecimal system. They probably had no more idea of it than we do of the Japanese word for octopus.

Quote
The need to re-size the 5p and 10p fell by the wayside when the 20p was introduced.  At that point, no more 10p coins were required.

You'd already explained that - good point. However, my system would most cunningly have made the 5p and 10p smaller from the start - no later efforts needed.

Quote
Decimalisation was a massive project and the Royal Mint had to move home partly because of the numbers of new coins required.  Adding a complete reissue of the 5p and 10p into the mix surely would have been impossible?

No. They could have been granted an extra year, if prior planning showed it was necessary. No need to put the show on the road in 1971, if it was going to be premature. By the time the Mint came to resize them, there were far more 5p, 10p, shillings and florins circulating, taken together, than at the dawn of decimalisation, so they gave themselves a bigger task, ultimately. My plans would have saved them a lot of time and money and awkwardness. Imagine, you have your small 5p and 10p and additionally your 20p all in place by 1971. Your predecimal coins are gone by 1974 - relatively easily done. All that's left is to demonetise your ½p, and add the pound and 2 pound coins. A beautiful solution. All the 1982, 1983, 1990-3 and 1997 stuff is avoided. I'd have had a 2 pound coin out by 1981 at the latest.

Quote
Anyway, as I've said elsewhere, Australia and New Zealand (and probably others) kept the shilling and florin sizes as the basis for their decimal coinage.

What's good for the goose is not always good for the gander. There were more efficient ways of doing things. South Africa had a brief interlude with large decimal coins (1960 to 1965) before redoing the series in 1966.

Quote
What the UK did wasn't that big a deal really, and I can hardly take seriously the suggestion that it showed a lack of commitment to full decimalisation.

Well, we'll just have to disagree, if you can't appreciate the beauty of my plans. It's not my fault I'm a genius, and I'm sending you to bed without any supper.  :P
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

FosseWay

Quote from: <k>No. They could have been granted an extra year, if prior planning showed it was necessary. No need to put the show on the road in 1971, if it was going to be premature. By the time the Mint came to resize them, there were far more 5p, 10p, shillings and florins circulating, taken together, than at the dawn of decimalisation, so they gave themselves a bigger task, ultimately. My plans would have saved them a lot of time and money and awkwardness. Imagine, you have your small 5p and 10p and additionally your 20p all in place by 1971. Your predecimal coins are gone by 1974 - relatively easily done. All that's left is to demonetise your ½p, and add the pound and 2 pound coins. A beautiful solution. All the 1982, 1983, 1990-3 and 1997 stuff is avoided. I'd have had a 2 pound coin out by 1981 at the latest.

If the decimal system had sprung fully formed - with no reference to previous coin sizes and with both the 20p and £1 in the mix from the start - into existence in 1971, I strongly doubt whether it would have survived until 2017 with no further changes. There was a heck of a lot of inflation in the first years, so a suitable size for £1 in 1971 would not necessarily be suitable in 2017. There has been a tendency to change to cheaper metals and this would have occurred anyway. And the problems with forgery that led to the £1 being changed would still have existed, only more so, since technology has moved on since 1971.

I can only think of two currencies now in use that have survived longer than 50 years without significant changes to the coins in use - the Swiss franc and the US dollar. The latter has retained its specifications by becoming more and more worthless and neither adding nor removing denominations as required, such that US coins are largely pointless compared to the role that coins with the same specifications played 50, 100 years ago. The Swiss franc is more versatile because it has always contained a wider range of actually used denominations, and because it doesn't shy away from using a broad range of sizes and weights (though it is conservative on colour and shape).

And even in those cases, there are peripheral changes that have resulted in changes in practice to what is available in circulation, even if the law theoretically says otherwise - both countries have ceased production of silver coins which have subsequently disappeared from use, for example.

<k>

Quote from: FosseWay on August 23, 2017, 08:09:08 AM
If the decimal system had sprung fully formed - with no reference to previous coin sizes and with both the 20p and £1 in the mix from the start - into existence in 1971, I strongly doubt whether it would have survived until 2017 with no further changes. There was a heck of a lot of inflation in the first years, so a suitable size for £1 in 1971 would not necessarily be suitable in 2017.

I agree with you. I didn't say that it wouldn't have survived unchanged after the 1990s. But I've shown proof (see the Royal Mint's wish list) that there were already pressures building up as early as 1979. My planned pound would have come in no earlier than 1978, but I certainly don't think there would have been a need for one in 1971. By 1978, a lot of the worst of the inflation (peak year 1975) was over. We've seen that the authorities would have liked a pound coin around the size of the old 10p - similar to the size the 2 pound coin eventually became. However, with the lower denominations already comfortably in place as mainly smaller coins, there would have been room to plan the 1 and 2 pound coins in tandem, for release within a couple of years of each other. With a generally smaller and lighter system, more in tune with that found on the Continent, it's then likely that the pound coin would have been 25 mm or so and not too thick, rather than around 28 mm, which might still have been reserved for the 2 pound coin. My system would have been in place by 1981, so of course there would still have been metal changes after that, and a more secure pound (and then 2 pound) coin. But many countries had systems that served well for 30 years or so, rather than the 11 years needed before the first changes to our decimal system. So my plans were perfectly feasible, even at the time.

 
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

The most egregious omissions in the early decimal system were the lack of a 20p coin to bridge the gap between the 10p and the 50p, and the failure to provide a companion 2 pound coin within a couple of years of the issue of the pound coin.

Certainly the medium-sized, or sensibly sized coins, such as the 1p and the 20p, have survived the test of time very well. The 20p is 35 years old. Possibly the 5p in my alternative scenario might not have been so small as our current 18 mm, as that would have been too close in size to the sixpence when introduced. It may have had to be something like 22 mm and polygonal, but there was no need to make the first 10p as large as 28.4 mm or anywhere near it. So my alternative plans would have brought their own problems, but with intelligent planning and maybe more polygonals for the lower denominations and fewer for the higher (or maybe just one for each), a long-lasting solution could have been found.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Alan71

Coinage is very much about what is acceptable to the people that have to use it.  FosseWay points out that however it may have started, it would have evolved over the subsequent decades.  Nothing stays the same, but it works best of it's allowed to evolve.  Forcing everything to change in 1971 would have been an extremely bad idea and I'm glad it didn't happen.  The only worse idea was the UK joining the Euro, and that never happened either.

<k>

Evolution applies only to biological life. Coinage is not a living thing. It is invented by and directed by humans, who make decisions about how it should proceed. I think that in the case of the UK and its decimal coinage, and the retention of some predecimal coins, some poor decisions were made. This led to the Royal Mint's crowded wish list of 1979, when it found its choices constrained. You, by contrast, tend to think that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, which is fine, but I like to analyse things and wonder how they could have been done better.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

Quote from: Alan71 on August 26, 2017, 08:43:22 PM
Forcing everything to change in 1971 would have been an extremely bad idea and I'm glad it didn't happen.

I wouldn't have forced everything to change in 1971. I'd advocated a three year transitional period, to February 1974. After that, all the predecimals would have been demonetised and "NEW" (or "DECIMAL" in my plan) omitted from the coin legends.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Alan71

We'll have to agree to disagree I think...

I do find internet forums very interesting.  I've been on quite a few in my time, and on very different subjects.  The theme is much the same though... the forum members think they know much better than the people who actually made the decisions.  I find it fascinating.  Me?  I will freely admit the experts don't always get it right but I accept that the middle way - the compromise - was probably the best course of action.  You're never going to please all of the people, all of the time.

<k>

Quote from: Alan71 on August 26, 2017, 11:24:52 PM
the forum members think they know much better than the people who actually made the decisions.  I find it fascinating.  Me?  I will freely admit the experts don't always get it right but I accept that the middle way - the compromise - was probably the best course of action. 

Well, you certainly think you know better than the "experts" who are not issuing enough 2 pound coins.

Then again, the decisions of the "experts" vary from country to country. Why did the UK stick to the weight-to-value ratio when most of Europe did not? Why did the UK take so long to decimalise? Then again, you occasionally get political interference from short-lived governments:

1992 UK pound bird designs rejected by Chancellor of the Exchequer

Why was the Chancellor so dead against harmless birds on coins? After all, he claimed to be a bird lover, and we'd had a wren on the farthing long ago. As for "NEW" on the decimal coins, it was the Labour government that changed it from the "DECIMAL" that the Duke of Edinburgh wished to see - Prince Philip particularly disliked "NEW". So this isn't so much compromise as disagreement, with the politicians overriding the Royal Mint. The coinage we get is often a result of a battle of wills. This again points to humans making decisions, for better or for worse. I would be wary of the word "experts" - they are just fallible humans.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

augsburger

As a kid who grew up in the period after decimalisation and had money in my pocket before the big 50p, 10p, 5p went out of circulation, it was never, ever an issue having shillings and florins in my change. I knew what was what even as a kid.

<k>

Unlikely. Alan71 remembers not knowing and being confused. Children generally don't know things without being told. You were evidently told but simply can't remember being told, just as I can't remember whether I was told the difference between a cat and a dog or whether I deduced it from the names that people around me called them.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.