History of the "Old Money" System in the UK

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UK Old Money

History of the "Old Money" System in the UK

On this page we look at a brief history of the UK Old Money System.
Nothing to do with the Anglia, but I thought it would be fun to look at.

Notes

Some of the pages within the site quote Original Historical UK Prices of Anglia’s and other related products.

Just in case you are not of the older persuasion (or are not from the UK), a little bit of history about the UK “Old Money” System may not go amiss. The money in the UK in “Ford Anglia days” was written as £ s d. The pound sign derives from the blackletter "L" (gothic script "L" for "L" used at the time), an abbreviation of Librae in Roman, the "s" from the Roman solidi and the "d" from the Roman denarii. Hence £ s d stood for pounds, shillings and pence.

If you wanted to survive in the fifties and sixties you would have had to know about the “old money” system, which consisted of a lot more coins and notes than there is today. Basically there were 12 Pence in a Shilling and 20 Shillings (or 240 pence) in a Pound, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

The coins in circulation at the time were as follows:

Farthing or 1/4 pence (written as 1/4d)	Halfpenny or 1/2 pence (written as 1/2d)	Penny or 1 pence (written as 1d)
Threepence (a "threpney bit") or 3 pence (written as 3d)	Sixpence (a “tanner”) or 6 pence (written as 6d)	1 Shilling (a “bob”) or 12 pence (written as 1s or 1/-)
2 Shilling (a “two bob bit”) or 24 pence (written as 2s or 2/-)	Half Crown (2 shillings & 6 pence) or 30 pence (written as 2s 6d or 2/6)	Crown (5 shillings) or 60 pence (written as 5s or 5/-)

1959 Money

The bank notes in circulation at the time the Ford Anglia was being sold were as follows:

10 Shilling Note (a “10 bob note”)
or 120 pence (written as 10s or 10/-)
From 25 October 1948
Size: 138mm x 78mm

ten shilling

From 12 October 1961
Size: 140mm x 67mm

ten shilling

One Pound Note (a “quid”)
or 240 pence (written as £1)
From 13 September 1948
Size: 151mm x 85mm

one pound

From 17 March 1960
Size: 151mm x 72mm

one pound

Five Pound Note (a "fiver")
(written as £5 or £5 0s 0d)
From 21 February 1957
Size: 158mm x 90mm

five pound

From 31 August 1963
Size: 140mm x 85mm

five pound

Ten Pound Note (a "tenner")
(written as £10 or £10 0s 0d)
There was no £10 Note in circulation
from 1945 until 1964

five pound

From 21 February 1964
Size: 150mm x 93mm

ten pound

The “old money” system carried on until 1971, when the UK converted to a new base 10 System (Decimal Currency).

This now meant that a shilling was worth 5 New Pence, 2 Shillings was now 10 New Pence and a Pound was 100 New Pence. To confuse the public even more, the 5 New Pence and 10 New Pence coins were exactly the same size and weight as the old 1 shilling and 2 shilling coins, which could still be used well after 1971. Other coins were replaced by smaller versions (the Penny and Halfpenny coins), others were withdrawn altogether (the Farthing, Threepence, Sixpence, Half Crown and Crown) and some altogether new coins were introduced (the Twenty and Fifty New Pence pieces) but this is a whole other story.

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