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

[kumarrahul]

Hello everybody.. thanks for the response(s).  It is indeed interesting to note that there could have been a possibility of these currencies co-circulating.  I do agree that unlike today, travel would be relatively small and chance of anyone trying to handling British currency in say South Africa, negligible.

The comparison with the Euro, is just to make the subject interesting and easily understood by a layman.  I have a couple of related coins, and I have prepared something to illustrate this for my album.  I took some pain to scan all the coins in one go, so as not to lose their comparative sizes and make the illustration more effective.

Unable to attach this here due to size limitations.. will try to share in some other way.

Rahul

[kumarrahul]

Hi,

Here is the link to the single page document I have prepared to illustrate the British 'Euro' thought for my album.  Feedback is appreciated.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1lEXM8O6NAcb8INXuynhaD14t2vOzs-snEe_IA55Zb3sltvt8ATwOaFAqlcAF/edit?usp=sharing

Cheers
Rahul

[<k>]

A fine collection, Rahul, and you illustrate the similarities very well by photographing the coins together, whereas I presented them separately in my topic. It is true that the lower the denomination, the less likely the coins were to have standard specifications. The threepence coins seem to show the most variation of all.

Yes, the idea of a "British euro" is a thought-provoking concept, and we have discussed above in which ways it did or did not conform to the modern euro. Perhaps it would be even better to call it a "worldo" or a "globo".    The fact that these countries were connected to what was then the world's major reserve currency meant that they gained an advantage, whenever outsiders thought about investing in them. This advantage was in many cases lost, at first, when the colonies eventually became independent. In that way, the pound had a more beneficial effect than the present-day euro, which has been badly planned and implemented and is still ravaging the economies of  Southern Europe, though the denialists still refuse to accept this and prefer to blame the "Anglo-Saxons" for their woes.

[malj1]

A very interesting page. You could also add Jersey to this. The Channel islands used British coins along with their own pennies and halfpennies. Jersey of course showed the the Royal bust on the obverse and called their penny a twelfth of a shilling while Guernsey stayed with their double fraction for the penny and half but of course these coins related in size to the pennies. See also the respective threepence's from both islands in brass matching the British threepence.

New guinea too used Australian £sd coinage, along with their own lower denominations for a short time which also conformed to the British sizes; see Coinage of New Guinea

Interesting too perhaps is the fact that the decimal 'silver' coins of both Australia and New Guinea still conform to the old pre-decimal coinage sizes.

[kumarrahul]

Thanks malj and <k> for the feedback..

At present my collection of pre-decimal currency is limited to what I have illustrated in the page.. I would love to get hold of pre-decimal coinage of jersey, new guinea and others to expand on this :-)

There can be a similar illustration done for the decimal coins of the pound sterling area.. but i guess this one makes for a far greater impact.

Cheers