Comments on "British Empire & C/W: pre-decimal denominations"

[villa66]

Great Britain's last 5-shilling crown, and a way under-appreciated design, I think; the 1965 Churchill commemorative. A circulating coin, surely?

v.

[translateltd]

Great Britain's last 5-shilling crown, and a way under-appreciated design, I think; the 1965 Churchill commemorative. A circulating coin, surely?

v.

I agree entirely on the quality, as I've commented elsewhere.  With 19 or so million produced the intention must have been for them to circulate, though there appears to have been something of a glut at the time.  I remember a cartoon in a late-60s COIN Monthly in which a shopkeeper asks a customer if she'd like her change in Churchill crowns ... PLEASE!

[<k>]

Great Britain's last 5-shilling crown, and a way under-appreciated design, I think; the 1965 Churchill commemorative. A circulating coin, surely?

v.

No, it never circulated. People at the time bought them as keepsakes and would show them to friends, who would hold them carefully by the edges. I suspect that none of the crowns shown in this topic was ever used as a standard circulation coin, even though they were all legal tender. It is striking that in the pre-decimal system the highest denomination of circulation coin was the half crown, whilst the lowest denomination of banknote was the ten shilling note. So there was quite a gap between ten shillings on the one hand, and two shillings and sixpence on the other. That gap even widened slightly, because immediately after decimalisation there was no coin to fill the slightly larger gap between the 10 pence coin and the 50 pence piece. It was only in 1982, when the 20 pence piece was first issued, that the gap was filled. I have occasionally noticed other coinages with a noticeably missing denomination, but at the the moment I can't remember which ones.

[translateltd]

Gambia's four shillings coin is an interesting denomination, but it is said to have circulated, because it was apparently a traditional and popular denomination for Gambians.

A clue may be found in the denomination spelt out in the Arabic alphabet - "dalasi".  While I don't recognise the adjacent word (presumably "One" in the local language), it suggests a dollar unit already in place in theory/practice - and the "dalasi" coin introduced after 1971 following decimalisation retained both the name and the design.

[Figleaf]

Everything is possible, but the link between the South African and UK designs is not too likely. Both the ship and the birds are of a very different kind. It is more likely that both are influenced by Dutch designs that would have been readily available in South African museums. The facing birds are used as a theme on glass and porcelain and are usually a love or marriage symbol, while the ship is of course a symbol for trade, used on Dutch and VOC coins, including the one attached, which circulated in South Africa.

In the case of South Africa, the ship is the "Dromedaris", flagship of Van Riebeeck, dating half a century after the "Golden Hind" and significantly larger.

Peter

[villa66]

...perhaps the early South African farthing and halfpenny, first issued in 1923, depicting sparrows and a ship respectively, inspired the designers of the British farthing and halfpenny of 1937, which depicted a wren and a ship respectively?

I have this note about the South African farthing design in my coin notebook:

X: The story behind the two sparrows on South Africa's farthing is almost too beautiful to be true. As I have read it, a group of women confined in a British prison camp during the Boer war got together and decided that if South Africa ever had a coin denominated 1-farthing, they would lobby to have two sparrows representing Hope and Faith placed upon the little copper. What inspired them, it is said, is the Bible verse Matthew 10:29–"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father knowing it?" Not only were the women successful, but by the time this 1952 farthing was coined, the two little sparrows had become a real fixture of South African coinage. (x)

v.

[Figleaf]

The Spanish peso was demonetized in 1880, at a rate of 4/2. At that time, the question arose whether the French 5 franc piece should also be called in. It then appeared that the French 5 franc formed 85% of the total circulation, estimated between £20 000 and £30 000, with most of the rest being British silver. Furthermore, it appeared that the 5 franc piece was valued at 4 shillings, except by the British government, which had set an official rate of 3/10.5. These facts seem to have been unknown to the colonial authorities before.

As 80% of the colony's trade was with France, the 5 Franc coins were not demonetized and the rate of 4 shillings to the dalasi stuck.

Peter

[translateltd]

A clue may be found in the denomination spelt out in the Arabic alphabet - "dalasi".  While I don't recognise the adjacent word (presumably "One" in the local language), it suggests a dollar unit already in place in theory/practice - and the "dalasi" coin introduced after 1971 following decimalisation retained both the name and the design.

Just checked Schön, which I should have done in the first place: the words are "dalasi" in Mandinka and "dërëm" in Wolof, the latter presumably cognate with "dirham".

[kumarrahul]

Coins of the same denomination often conformed to the British standard, that is, to the specifications of the coin that circulated in the UK.

Hi,  I am trying to draw a parallel with the Euro where the coins have a common side and a national side.  These coins do reflect such characteristics..  Were the coins of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, East Africa etc. equal in exchange value as per their denomination.. It may seem farfatched, but could one use a South African florin in Australia?

Cheers
Rahul

[malj1]

Australia and New Zealand both used British coins until they issued their own issues. In Australia this occurred in 1910 while NZ issued their own coinage in 1934. They were at par when issued but diverged later.

Not sure of the situation in Africa but doubt any SA coins ever circulated in Oz.

[<k>]

Before Southern Rhodesia got its own coinage, it used to use South African coinage AND British coinage, and both co-circulated with Rhodesian coinage (after it got its own) for a few years. This is one reason why South Rhodesia elected to keep the crowned effigy from 1936/7 onward (after George VI) took the throne, to distinguish their coins from South African coins, yet in 1952/3, the chose to take the uncrowned effigy of Elizabeth II, just like South Africa.

As Malj1 points out, the values of some of the different pounds started to diverge during the Depression and World War II, but I understand that the UK pound and the Australian pound were once again at par just before Australia went decimal.

It is probably the case that so called "homeland coinage" (UK coinage) was welcome in several Empire and Commonwealth countries, where the pounds were at par. Within a region, e.g. Southern Africa, and Australasia, coins of nearby countries did tend to co-circulate. However, you would not have expected a Rhodesian to accept a New Zealand florin, quite simply because he would not have been familiar with it and would have probably distrusted it.

So, to answer your question, the pound was never like the euro, but unofficially, in particular regions, it may have worked like that - informally and unofficially - but the different coins were not acceptable right through ALL the different pound-using countries, which were after all spread around the world, at a time when most people did not travel far at all.

Interesting question, though. Today we have a situation where, for instance, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar each use their own pound, which is at par with the UK pound sterling. Both territories accept UK coinage and banknotes, but the UK does not accept THEIR coinage and banknotes (even though some coins escape into circulation in the UK, simply because they look so similar to ours). And then again, the Gibraltarians will not accept Falklands money - and vice versa!

[Figleaf]

I think Kumarrahul deserves more credit for his point than he getting. In British colonial history, there have been several laws that explicitly said that only British money could be used in the colonies. In the face of insufficient supply and the impossibility to get all the cross rates right, it didn't work, except in sparsely populated territories, now known as the "white Commonwealth" (Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, though Canada fell to the USD eventually.) The rest became a patchwork of systems you might divide in a Rupee area, a Peso area and a whatever-the-natives-use area (mainly US, French and Dutch money.) Within these areas, the coins were exchangeable, but within the limit of trust. Not so much trust in the coins as trust that the next merchant would accept them.

The comparison with the euro is pretty incomplete, though. Colonial currencies not based on GBP could and did fluctuate. Decimalisation won out eventually, but in an irregular pattern (a bit like driving on the left slowly became a minority option), breaking links between GBP and colonial currencies. Most important, the euro is a voluntary monetary union. You choose to go in and once you are in, you have a say. The map on euro coins is therefore completely different in significance from the portraits on British colonial coins.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Just a fun afterthought for malj1. Yes, at some time the same money circulated in South Africa and Australia. It was struck by the VOC...

Peter

[malj1]

Just a fun afterthought for malj1. Yes, at some time the same money circulated in South Africa and Australia. It was struck by the VOC...

Peter

We were desperate for coinage in the 18/19th centuries and used anything that could be obtained.

  This page shows some very nice examples of coins that were used here and were mentioned in Governor King's Proclamation of 1800.

[<k>]

Parent topic: British Empire & C/W: a parade of pre-decimal denominations