Old money - pounds, shillings and pence
"Old money" or pounds, shillings and pence or appropriately for the sixties, LSD (that's Libra, Solidus, Denarius, not lysergic acid diethylamide) was in use for the whole of the fifties and sixties. All this changed on 15 February 1971, when D-Day - Decimal Day, came and Britain switched over to the new decimal currency we know today, where 100 pence made 1 pound.
From then on people asked: "What's that in old money?"
How much is a sixpence in new money?
Answer 2½p or 2 and a half new pence.
The sixpence was allowed to remain in circulation for several years after decimalisation in 1971. It was finally withdrawn in June 1980 and sadly missed ever since!
Other old money conversions
- One shilling (or 'bob') - 5p
- Half a crown (2 shillings and sixpence) - 12½p
- One guinea - £1.05
Coins and Notes
If you wanted to survive in the fifties and sixties you would have to know about the old money system of pounds, shillings and pence:
four farthings made a penny (1d); twelve pence made a shilling (1s or 1/-) or 'bob' as in 'bob a job'; five shillings made a crown, although there was no such thing except on special occasions, such as to mark the Queen's Coronation in 1953, the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 and for no apparent reason in 1960; you could have spent a half crown - that's 2/6 (two shillings and six pence); 20 shillings made a pound and there were notes for 10 shillings as well.
So there were 240d (that's pence) in £1 that's 12 (pence in a shilling) x 20 (shillings in a pound) - easy isn't it? I don't know why they ever changed it! If you needed to add up in pounds, shillings and pence you needed three columns.
Buy old money
If you want to buy a set of 'old money', the best way is to buy a complete set from a specific year. They can make great birthday present, if you can find a set dating from the year the person was born. They are not as expensive as you might think. A complete set of coins from a specific year from the 50s or 60s should cost no more than £ 25 and often a lot less. Look for:
Banknotes
Banknotes started at 10 shillings (50p) in today's money. The ten shilling or ten bob note disappeared in 1971, being replaced by the fifty pence coin.
Guineas
Oh, and I haven't mentioned guineas. One guinea was 21 shillings - that's one pound and one shilling. There were no guinea coins, but you might still find bills in guineas from solicitors, accountants and other professionals, and if you went on holiday you might have to settle your hotel bill in guineas. It was a way of sounding posh and also making a bill seem a little bit smaller than it actually was - a bit like £9.99 instead of £10! 1967 appeared to be the last year in which the old coins were minted. However, the Royal Mint pulled a trick to stop people hoarding the last of the old money. All coins minted in old denominations from 1967 to 1970 were dated 1967.
New money
Starting from 1968 they started to mint 'new money'. In fact they started with coin denominated in 'New Pence' of values 5 and 10. These fitted in well with the old system as they were direct replacements for the one and two shilling pieces. In those days today's pence were 'new pence' and that was what was on the coins. In 1967 you might have had any of the following in change.
Half Penny
1/2d
Penny
1d
Threepence
3d
Sixpence
6d
One Shilling
1s or 1/-
Two Shillings
2s or 2/-
Half Crown
2s 6d or 2/6
How much did it cost?
So how much was a can of baked beans then?
These are some typical prices from 1965:
| English butter per lb | 3/- |
| Baked beans lb | 9d |
| Kellogs Cornflakes 12oz | 1/5 |
| Nescafé 2oz | 2/3 |
| Omo washing powder per lb | 1/11 |
So what's that in today's money? Translating the prices at face value, they work out at 15p for a lb of butter, 4p for the baked beans, 7p for the cornflakes, 11p for the coffee and 10p for the Omo.
But what about inflation? According to the retail price index, prices have gone up by a factor of twelve since 1965. So taking inflation into account, these prices would have been £1.25 for a lb of butter, 48p for a lb of baked beans, 84p for 12oz of cornflakes, £1.32 for 2oz of Nescafe and £1.20 for a lb of Omo (remember Omo?).
More on old money
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Kind regards,
Penny Main" Penny Main 12/09/2013
Two Shillings three pence would have been 11.25 pence (in UK money). There are many ways you could convert this. According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator 11.25p in 1796 would be worth £11.36 today. Converting to USD at today's rates gives you $17.04. Best regards" Steven 02/12/2015
Two Shillings three pence would have been 11.25 pence (in UK money). There are many ways you could convert this. According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator it 11.25p would be worth £11.36. Converting to USD at today's rates gives you $17.04. Best regards" Steven 02/12/2015
Please help!" Michael Alley 26/03/2016
One thing which has always annoyed me since D-Day is this: The singular was previously "one penny" and the plural was "two pence", "three pence", "four pence" (usually pronounced "tuppence", "thrippence"), "fourpence" all the way up to "elevenpence". That is just standard English. It has nothing to do with currency and therefore nothing to do with decimal conversion.
Where, oh, where did that awful expression "one pence" come from????? Will someone PLEASE explain and put me out of my mysery? No-one says "one cars" or "one houses" (thank goodness) so how can there possibly be "one pence"? There can, of course, be "twenty-one pence", "thirty-one pence" since 21 and 31 are plural but 1 is singular (isn't it??)" Pete 02/04/2016
Can anyone help with my query above about an accurate price for a cup of coffee - when there was mainly just black or white coffee!!" Michael Alley 11/04/2016
I hope this helps." Steven 11/04/2016
Many thanks" Kate 08/08/2016
best regards" Steven 17/08/2016
This is a very useful site, though I see that no questions have been asked since 2015.
A vintage clock I bought recently had a label inside which said that it had been purchased for 18 shillings in 1955. The clock is late 19thc, and I thought that 18/- was not a lot to pay in 1955. What would that be in today's money?
Thanks." Mike 28/01/2017
If you bought the album at that price in 1969, it would have been £32 in today's money.
All the best" Steven 19/08/2017
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa got this right. The only difference is, since their respective pounds weren't as important to the world as the British pound was, they were able to start with a clean slate.
What Britain should have done is decimalize the shilling into 10 new pence. By then no-one would grieve the loss of the sixpence; it'd be five new pence. Same value, different name.
How could the bigwigs get this wrong?" Josep 13/02/2018
Anyone know what this is ???
thanks!" Abi Smith 20/02/2018