Old money - pounds, shillings and pence
"Old money" or pounds, shillings and pence was the non-decimal system of currency we used in the UK from Saxon times until 15 February 1971. On that day Britain switched to the decimal system we use today, where one hundred pence make one pound.
How did the pre-decimal system work?
There were three units of currency, the penny, the shilling and the pound. There were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. So there were 12 x 20 = 240 pence in a pound.
Originally a troy pound in weight of silver was 240 pennyweights. A Saxon penny weighed a pennyweight, so there is a connection between pounds as a unit of weight and a pound as unit of money.
What coins did we use?
Farthing
1/4d
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
British pre-decimal coins in the twentieth century were:
- Farthing (¼d) - quarter of an old penny (not legal tender after 1960)
- Halfpenny (½d) - half an old penny
- Penny (1d)
- Threepence (3d)
- Sixpence (6d)
- Shilling (1s or 12d)
- Two shillings or florin (2s or 24d)
- Half crown ('Two and six' 2s 6d)
Farthings, halfpennies and pennies were bronze. The threepenny bit was brass. Before 1937 they were silver. There was a tradition of putting a threepenny bit in a Christmas pudding for a lucky child to find.
The sixpence, shilling, two shillings and half crown coin were silver. They were real silver before 1920.
There was also a crown, but the Royal Mint issued them only on special ocassions, such as coronations (1937 and 1953) and to commemorate the life of Sir Winston Churchill (1965). They were quite large and people kept them as momentos, rather than used them as money. Before the First World War there were also soveriegns (worth £1) and half soveriegns minted in gold.
The British system used the abbreviations £ for pound (as we do today) and 's' for shilling and 'd' for a penny. The abbreviations come from latin, Libra, Solidus, Denarius: Libra for pound, Solidus for shilling and Denarius for penny. So hence LSD.
People said 'what's that in LSD?' when asking the value of something.
The other common abbreviation was the '/' symbol to divide amounts in shillings and pence. So 15 shillings and 6 pence was 15s 6d or 15/6. If there were no pence /- was used for a quantity in shillings, so 5/- for 5 shillings.
For example, a jar of instant coffee might cost 2/3. (2s 3d or two shillings and three pence).
After 1914, there were no soveriegns and half soveriegns. There were £1 and 10s notes instead.
1967 appears to be the last year in which the old coins were minted. However, the Royal Mint had 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.
After 1971 the sixpence, shilling and two shilling pieces were still legal tender. Sixpence was 2½ new pence, one shilling 5 new pence and two shillings 10 new pence. Other coins disappeared. Many older people mourned the disappearance of the half crown and kept examples as souvenirs.
The sixpence remained in circulation until June 1980 and has been sadly missed ever since.
How much did things cost in old money?
So how much was a can of baked beans?
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 is 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 1lb of Omo.
What about the guinea?
One guinea was 21 shillings - that is one pound and one shilling. There were no guinea coins in the twentieth century, but you still received bills in guineas from solicitors, accountants and other professionals. 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.
Slang terms for old money
You might hear the term bob for a shilling. The Boy Scouts did 'Bob a job' week. In my day the Scouting Movement discouraged the term as they wanted more than a bob a job in the high inflation days of the 1970s.
A tanner was a sixpence.
Why use a non-decimal system?
The advantage of the system over decimal, was that is was easy to divide. You could divide a pound into:
- Half - 120 pence
- One third - 80 pence
- One quarter - 60 pence
- One fifth - 48 pence
- One sixth 40 pence
In the days before computers and calculators, this was useful for trading.
How do you convert from old to new money?
To convert a price in pre-decimal to decimal:
Work out the amount in old pence. E.g. half a crown is 2s 6d = 2 x 12 + 6 = 30d
Then divide by 2.4. 30 / 2.4 = 12½p. So half a crown is 12½p.
Other quick conversions:
Sixpences is 2½p or 2 and a half new pence
One shilling is 5p.
One guinea is £1.05
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, especially 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 1950s or 1960s should cost no more than £25 and often a lot less. Look for:
New money
From 1968 onwards, the Royal Mint started to mint 'new money'. 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'.
More on old money
Add your comments
Retrowow Established 2002
Vintage, retro & social history
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