In living memory the english ditched their shillings for decimal currency: smart or thick?

Answer 1

Smart. In addition to all the other reasons, people take currency out of the market to collect it, so when they change the style, it reduces inflation temporarily, I believe.

Answer 2

It certainly makes the maths easier, although when you look at how people need a calculator to work out 10% nowadays, you could wonder whether that is such a good thing after all - at least with Lsd, you needed to be able to do mental arithmetic!

Aside fromt that, there was something rather charming about pre-decimal currency, even down to the names of the coins - shillings, tanners or florins, crowns and half-crowns, plus a certain appealing eccentricity about a monetary system which worked in a different base - 12 pennies to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound.

And of course, when the switch to decimal came, it was just like the introduction of the euro - all the prices went up.

Answer 3

It was 1971 when we switched.

Before then we had the Pound, of course, but there were 240 pennies to a Pound; 12 pennies in a shilling and twenty shilling to a Pound. With me so far ;-)

There was a halfpenny coin, a penny coin, a threepenny bit, a sixpence, a shilling, a florin (two shillings), a half-crown coin (2.5 shillings) and a crown (work it out!) coin (though the last two weren't common).

We had a 10-bob note (50p), a pound note, a fiver and a tenner, though I can't recall anything bigger those days.

It was hard work calculating all that lot!

Answer 4

Feb fifteenth 1971, it substitute into given the call D day, D for decimal. Decimilisation substitute into presented into the Rep of eire on the comparable day Librae Solidi Denarii (pounds Shillings Pence) D-lysergic acid diethylamide i.e. LSD and the Beatles Hit Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Answer 5

I'm English, and when you have been brought up only knowing pound shillings and pence, it was easy to do the maths. And we worked things out in our heads, unlike now when it is worked out in ten units and they need a calculater to work the maths out, it's pathetic. There was one thing though, we feel we were cheated out of money when they did change to the decimal currency. so I feel it was not a smart move. We lost part of our identity, and we are gradually losing more and more of our identity and culture.We are never going to get it back. this I suppose is progress. I also realize that as we are part of the EU it wont change back.

Answer 6

I still sometimes think in the old currency.

It seems ridiculous to have to pay ten shillings for an Evening Standard, or over a guinea for the cheapest bus fare!

I liked the old money.

It was nice sometimes to find an old Victorian penny.

Thick.

We might as well join the Euro now.

What we have isn't a real pound.

Thick

Answer 7

Yup, definitely a smart move. Far easier to count.
And the sooner we get rid of ounce, pounds and stones the better too.
But our pound and new pence are on the way out too, soon (I hope) to be replaced by the euro and cents.
Woohoooo - roll on the future, when British currency and weights & measures are truly dragged into the 21st Century. (And UKIP can go weigh that up any way they like:)))

Answer 8

R T
It was about time , as there were farthings , shillings ,pence ,and pounds and it was an odd numbers of one farthing made one of these and another totally off the wall number of these made a shilling or a pence . the decimal system cannot do anything but simplify matters as they can now use their fingers
, SMART

Answer 9

It will be bad if we ever convert to the Euro.

That will take away one of the last Great British things that is still ours.

That my friend will be the final nail in our coffin.

Robin M You are a wan.ker

Answer 10

I don't live there, but I have a feeling that that's an "open debate" question for people who do. For example: Here in our town, I'm in the US., there are people who still don't like / feel comfortable with blacks in it. Some people have trouble with change.