# Explain English Money to Me **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504 "2019-08-11T15:19:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/1 "2019-08-11T15:19:21Z")
So I’m watching Peaky Blinders, and I have no idea how British money works. How much is a 1921 pound worth in modern dollars? Also, how many pounds in a Guinea. or a Sovereign? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/2 "2019-08-11T15:42:52Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > So I’m watching Peaky Blinders, and I have no idea how British money works. How much is a 1921 pound worth in modern dollars? Also, how many pounds in a Guinea. or a Sovereign? At that time there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. A sovereign is a name of a gold coin worth a pound. A guinea was originally a gold coin worth a pound, but as the price of gold and silver fluctuated, this changed. By the time you’re speaking of, there were essentially no guinea coins. It was an amount worth 21 shillings Items sometimes had prices listed as guineas to make them seem not so expensive. An item costing 100 guineas cost not 100 pounds but 105 pounds. In 1921 a pound was worth a bit less than $4 US which adjusted for in flation is about $52 today. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/3 "2019-08-11T15:51:49Z")
“Guineas” were used to denote supposedly luxury/high quality goods and services, so, professional fees (lawyers, doctors, architects and so on), posh(or would-be posh) clothes, cars, radio sets and gramophones, etc. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/4 "2019-08-11T16:05:52Z")
£1 in 1921 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £48.55, which is around $58.44. These calculations are distorted by different ways of calculating inflation. My preferred method is to compare the value of an hour’s labour: In the 1920’s a labourer would earn around £2 (40 shillings, or 480 pence)for a 60 hour week, compared to £400 (around £340 nett) today for 40 hours. There are 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a Pound and a Guinea is 21 shillings. Even today you might hear of racehorses being auctioned in Guineas. A Sovereign is a gold coin with a face value of £1.00 - naturally, it would have a far higher intrinsic value. They are still made today as commemorative coins. Slang terms for coins: Farthing - a quarter of a penny Ha’penny - half a penny Thruppence - three pence tanner - sixpence Bob - shilling (a 20th of a Pound) Half a Crown - two shillings and sixpence. (An eighth of a Pound) Tenner (a note) - Ten shillings Fiver - five pounds (a large white note, rarely seen by ordinary workers) ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/5 "2019-08-11T16:31:40Z")
Thanks all! ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/6 "2019-08-11T17:21:21Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > At that time there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. A sovereign is a name of a gold coin worth a pound. And, bear in mind that “at that time” is the key here – modern English money doesn’t work this way. In 1971, [England instituted decimalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day) – they abolished the shilling, and subdivided the pound into 100 pence. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/7 "2019-08-11T17:40:05Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Slang terms for coins: > Farthing - a quarter of a penny > Ha’penny - half a penny > Thruppence - three pence > tanner - sixpence > Bob - shilling (a 20th of a Pound) > Half a Crown - two shillings and sixpence. (An eighth of a Pound) > Tenner (a note) - Ten shillings > Fiver - five pounds (a large white note, rarely seen by ordinary workers) Five shillings being a crown. Two being a florin. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/8 "2019-08-11T17:51:04Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > There are 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a Pound and a Guinea is 21 shillings. Even today you might hear of racehorses being auctioned in Guineas. Would a miser be a Guinea Pig? ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/9 "2019-08-11T18:07:20Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Would a miser be a Guinea Pig? Is there a portmanteau word that combines “groan” and “applause”? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/10 "2019-08-11T18:44:42Z")
The pound/shilling/penny system was surprisingly durable. It was adopted in Anglo-Saxon times, modeled on the French system established by Charlemagne. > [@](#): > > [French livre - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_livre) > The livre was established by Charlemagne as a unit of account equal to one pound of silver. It was subdivided into 20 sous (also sols), each of 12 deniers. The word livre came from the Latin word libra, a Roman unit of weight, and the denier comes from the Roman denarius. This system and the denier itself served as the model for many of Europe’s currencies, including the British pound, Italian lira, Spanish dinero and the Portuguese dinheiro. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/11 "2019-08-11T19:31:10Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > There are 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a Pound and a Guinea is 21 shillings. Even today you might hear of racehorses being auctioned in Guineas. I had no idea ! I thought that bit of shitting on the proles had been strictly Victorian. Do they say Guineas for the “classism” of it but really it’s actually Pounds, or do they still really add the one shilling ? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/12 "2019-08-11T19:42:38Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I had no idea ! I thought that bit of shitting on the proles had been strictly Victorian. Do they say Guineas for the “classism” of it but really it’s actually Pounds, or do they still really add the one shilling ? They still added the extra shilling the last time I was in England hmmm '99 I think it was. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/13 "2019-08-11T20:47:18Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I had no idea ! I thought that bit of shitting on the proles had been strictly Victorian. Do they say Guineas for the “classism” of it but really it’s actually Pounds, or do they still really add the one shilling ? Horse-racing in the UK still uses furlongs as a unit of length, so it is quite traditional in general. In the case of horse auctions - the auctioneer takes the extra shilling as commission. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/14 "2019-08-11T21:04:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Slang terms for coins Couple of extras, which would have been around at the time Peaky Blinders is set: It wasn’t unknown for people to talk about “half a dollar” (meaning half a crown, since at that time a dollar was roughly the same value as five shillings) The threepenny bit (before the introduction of the multi-sided copper coin in the 1930s) was known as a “joey” or (because it still had some silver in it) a “silver joey” (my mother still had a couple to put in the Christmas pudding in the 1950s). ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/15 "2019-08-11T21:13:06Z")
One of the cute things about decimalization was that, as you’ll note, a shilling being a twentieth of a pound meant that it was exactly equal to five “new pence”, and two shillings was the same as ten. So nobody bothered to recall those coins, and up to a couple of decades later you would still regularly see one-shilling and two-shilling coins in your change, which were understood to be exactly equal to 5p and 10p. This lasted until a currency redesign in the early nineties, when everything shrank (presumably to match the 20p coin which was introduced some time in the 80s, and always seemed bizarrely titchy next to an older 5p) ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/16 "2019-08-11T21:40:51Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Couple of extras, which would have been around at the time Peaky Blinders is set: > > It wasn’t unknown for people to talk about “half a dollar” (meaning half a crown, since at that time a dollar was roughly the same value as five shillings) The ‘Dollar’ in question was not the American dollar but the Spanish Dollar > [@](#): > > It goes back to the Napoleonic Wars. Britain was short of gold and silver coinage because most of it was used to finance the War abroad. Spanish dollars were imported to fill the gap and given the nominal value of 5 shillings, although, despite being about the same size they were actually worth a little less in terms of silver content. Hence, 5/- was a dollar and 2/6 as a half-dollar. > [What is "half a dollar" in pre-decimal British currency slang? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/385349/what-is-half-a-dollar-in-pre-decimal-british-currency-slang) When I was a teenager, a Pound was worth £2.40. This meant that a US cent and a UK penny were equivalent in value. Would that they were today. A ‘Crown’ or five-shilling coin was far too large to be in general use, and I have never heard it being used as a named coin. Five bob or even two half-crowns, yes, but not a ‘Crown’. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/17 "2019-08-12T00:22:54Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > The threepenny bit (before the introduction of the multi-sided copper coin in the 1930s) was known as a “joey” or (because it still had some silver in it) a “silver joey” (my mother still had a couple to put in the Christmas pudding in the 1950s). There was also, at one time, a fourpenny bit with the alternate name of “groat”. > [@bob\_2](#): > > When I was a teenager, a Pound was worth £2.40. This meant that a US cent and a UK penny were equivalent in value. Would that they were today. If the pound goes down in value much more, the pence will be the same value as the cent. Just give it some time (and maybe a Brexit). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/18 "2019-08-12T01:33:22Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > When I was a teenager, a Pound was worth £2.40. I’m confused; what does this mean? Doesn’t the £ indicate British pounds? It sounds like you’re saying a pound was worth 2.4 pounds. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/19 "2019-08-12T01:40:57Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m confused; what does this mean? Doesn’t the £ indicate British pounds? It sounds like you’re saying a pound was worth 2.4 pounds. It’s a typo. He means $2.40. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/20 "2019-08-12T01:45:43Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m confused; what does this mean? Doesn’t the £ indicate British pounds? It sounds like you’re saying a pound was worth 2.4 pounds. I believe he’s saying that because of inflation and the devaluing of the currency’s buying power, the buying power of one pound sterling in 19XX is equivalent to the buying power of 2.4 pounds sterling today. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504.md?page=2)