# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/81 "2019-08-14T19:14:14Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > I’ve read that many American servicemen in Britain in World War II, found British currency mildly insane-driving… > > The Americans called threepenny bits, “bastard coins”: with the celebrated thing of their being much better-paid than British troops – occasioning much envy… A joke of the time was that the Brits thought the problem with Yanks was that they were “overpaid, oversexed and over here.” The Americans replied that the British troops were just sore because they were “underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower.” > [@MEBuckner](#): > > …not just dollars and cents but also dimes and mills (the last of which only even theoretically comes up with the odd custom of pricing gasoline using numbers like “$2.56[sup]9[/sup] per gallon”)… Mills are used in tax policy, too. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/82 "2019-08-14T22:24:59Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > “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. AFAIK this went on until decimalization. I once read an early interview with Paul McCartney in which he said his violin-shaped bass guitar cost sixty guineas, going on to say he could afford a better one, but he was a skinflint. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/83 "2019-08-14T22:27:16Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Well, a ton is a hundred squid, so… (Perhaps someone can fill in a good animal joke) No, I think a ton is 2000 squid. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/84 "2019-08-14T22:37:46Z")
Britain, remember? 2,240 squid to the tonne. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/85 "2019-08-14T23:11:43Z")
> [@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? UK to USA money is easy! 1 Guinea is 21 shillings, thus worth quite a bit more than 1 pound, which was 20 shillings. Each shilling consisting of 12 pence, of course. One pence consisting of 4 farthing naturally. In US money, this was about 2/3rds of a $5 half-eagle, thus $3 (not to be confused with an indian head, which was $3… except when it was $2.50) Of course today a 1921 one-pound note is worth about $54, unless you have the actual note, in which case it is worth about $200, depending on condition. see, easy! ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/86 "2019-08-15T00:00:25Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Mills are used in tax policy, too. What’s really annoying about this is that a mill is an actual unit of currency, as well as an amount of a annual property tax levy per dollar of taxable value. There’s no reason to think when someone says that the new millage proposal is 2.9 mills that it would inherently mean 2.9 mills per dollar of taxable value paid annually; that’s just how it’s come to be used. My example there also shows that they definitely don’t keep to even mill numbers, which means that the entire point of using mills, and not cents or simply dollars, is kinda irrelevant. But kept on almost certainly because of the people who think that .02 cents is the same as $.02, and so they keep talking about things in mills because that’s what people understand. If they instead talking about it in terms of $2.90 per thousand dollars of taxable value, people would probably be up in arms despite it being the same thing. Also to note is that the rate is per taxable value dollar, not per dollar the land is actually worth. At least in Michigan, the taxable value can only go up so much per year, although it otherwise would be equal to the State Equalized Value, which according to my mother the retired commercial real estate professional is one-half of the actual value of your home. Personally, I take this whole “one half” thing to mean that if you had your house sold at a sheriff’s sale for lack of payment, they’d probably only get one-half of what you’d get if you had some time to find a reasonable buyer. And since that’s what the state would get if they had to seize your home over unpaid taxes, that’s what they use in assessing the taxes. At least, again, in Michigan. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/87 "2019-08-15T22:08:47Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Fiver - five pounds (a large white note, rarely seen by ordinary workers) I understand this was once about the size of a sheet of letter paper. Was a five-pound note still that big in 1921? I’m just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/88 "2019-08-15T22:16:59Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > The dime says “one dime,” which is the weird one, because “dime” is not a denomination of currency. It’s just the name for the coin. > > Officially, it kind of is a denomination of currency Not that people use checks much anymore, but I wonder if you could write a check for a thousand dimes instead of a hundred dollars, and the bank would honor it? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/89 "2019-08-15T22:46:04Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > So, the dollar is the base unit, and other units are expressed in terms of their relation to the dollar, but there are officially _four_ units–not just dollars and cents but also dimes and mills (the last of which only even theoretically comes up with the odd custom of pricing gasoline using numbers like “$2.56[sup]9[/sup] per gallon”). Don’t forget “mill levies” which are a property tax expressed in mills: A mill in that context is $1 tax for every $1,000 of assessed value. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/90 "2019-08-15T23:07:06Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Not that people use checks much anymore, but I wonder if you could write a check for a thousand dimes instead of a hundred dollars, and the bank would honor it? As is customary in these things: _Maybe_. There’s an old urban legend (maybe true, maybe not) about someone painting a check on the side of a living cow and a bank honoring it. That may or may not have happened, but the fact is that a check is just a simple financial instrument which only _needs_ basic information to be valid. The pre-printed forms banks issue are merely a convenience for both you and them; they have a number of cunning features to aid automatic processing, such as magnetic ink in an odd typeface to allow non-OCR scanning of the routing and account numbers, so a bank would be unhappy if you came in with dozens of checks on scraps of paper, but that’s between you and your bank or other financial institution. Similarly, a store doesn’t have to take a valid but irregular check, but a store also doesn’t have to take a fifty dollar bill, or a fistful of pennies. [According to the UCC, which isn’t law but has been widely used as the model for state laws, a check is a draft (other than a documentary draft) payable on demand and drawn on a bank, or a cashier’s check, which, since those are issued by banks, _are_ going to be of a standard form because that’s how banks are](https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/3/3-104); a documentary draft is [“a draft to be presented for acceptance or payment if specified documents, certificated securities or instructions for uncertificated securities, or other certificates, statements, or the like are to be received by the drawee or other payor before acceptance or payment of the draft.”](https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/documentary-draft/) I’m sure someone, somewhere, actually uses those things. I further note that the definition of a check doesn’t mention that a _payee_ must be specified; [this seems to indicate that if none is named, it’s a bearer instrument, payable to whoever has it.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/3/3-109) ---
**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 15, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/91 "2019-08-15T23:09:51Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I understand this was once about the size of a sheet of letter paper. Was a five-pound note still that big in 1921? I’m just curious. They were never that big: The first £5 notes were introduced in 1793 as a reaction to the war against France and the shortage of gold. The notes were 195 x 120mm (about 7½ x 4¾") in size and were produced in black ink on white paper, later becoming known as the “White Fiver”. These notes were left relatively unchanged (with the exception of some size fluctuations) until 1945 when a metal thread security feature was introduced for the first time. The White Fiver, which had shrunk somewhat by then, was removed from circulation in March 1961 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/92 "2019-08-15T23:21:37Z")
[Just because I remember this, the story of Patrick Combs](https://www.ft.com/content/93a47a62-daf0-11e1-8074-00144feab49a): > [@Financial Times](#): > > It was a cheque, made out in my name, for $95,093.35 and it came in a junk-mail letter from a get-rich-quick company. It was worthless, meant only as a financial tease, a lip-licking come-on. “This is how much money you could soon be making.” What it was never meant for was deposit. But that’s exactly what made the thought of depositing it so irresistibly funny. What could possibly be funnier than depositing a perfectly ridiculous, obviously false, fake cheque? (Did I mention it had “non-negotiable” clearly written on it?) So, as a joke, I deposited the fake cheque into my bank’s ATM. I felt like a million bucks doing so. I’d never had so much fun at my bank. Come to think of it, I’d never had any fun at my bank until the moment I endorsed the back of this “cheque” with a smiley face and slipped the Monopoly-like money into the mouth of the hungry ATM. For the first time ever, I walked away from my bank laughing. > > [snip] > > I learned that what I thought was a fake cheque was legally a real cheque. A little-known change in the 1990 Uniform Commercial Code made it so that the words “non-negotiable” printed on a cheque do not invalidate it. It may have been just a small footnote change but what I deposited was, marvellously, an accidentally real $95,093.35 cheque. He gave back the money and is now a motivational speaker. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/93 "2019-08-16T04:07:52Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Don’t forget “mill levies” which are a property tax expressed in mills: A mill in that context is $1 tax for every $1,000 of assessed value. See post 81. ---
**Author:** ![Sleath](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sleath/32/8853_2.png) [@Sleath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleath)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/94 "2019-08-16T10:00:01Z")
> [@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 think what the writer meant was there were 240 pennies in a pound. 12 pennies (p) in a shilling (s) and 20 shillings in a pound (£). To get even more difficult there were: 4 farthings = 1 penny 3 pennies = threepence (obviously, but there was a coin) 6 pennies = sixpence " " " 4 pennies = 1 groat (last used in the 16th century) 3 groats = 1 shilling (12 pence) 2 1/2 shillings = 1 half-a-crown 2 half-a-crowns = 1 crown 4 crowns = 1 pound 1 pound + 1 shilling = 1 guinea. Britain adopted the decimal system almost fifty years ago but myself and folks my age (71) can still instantly add, divide, and multiply in the old currency ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/95 "2019-08-16T10:35:52Z")
> [@Sleath](#): > > Britain adopted the decimal system almost fifty years ago but myself and folks my age (71) can still instantly add, divide, and multiply in the old currency I’m 71 and British; but I can’t – never could. Can’t instantly do all that stuff “in decimal” either: I’m self-confessedly hopeless at arithmetic. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/96 "2019-08-16T13:49:55Z")
Once upon a time, schoolchildren were made to memorize their multiplication tables up to at least 12 x 12, which was obviously handy when dealing with duodecimal currency. ---
**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 16, 2019, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/97 "2019-08-16T15:56:38Z")
At my school, we went up to the 16 times table - for ounces in a pound. ---
**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 16, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/98 "2019-08-16T15:58:45Z")
And some of us had the old-style exercise books with all the measures listed on the back - rods, poles and perches included. But that’s really going off topic. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/99 "2019-08-16T16:20:27Z")
> [@Sleath](#): > > 4 pennies = 1 groat (last used in the 16th century) According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groat_(coin)), the groat was issued in Britain as late as the middle of the 19th century. And in British Guiana (now Guyana), until they decimalized in the middle of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2019, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/100 "2019-08-17T07:09:33Z")
> [@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? My bolding above – now going really wildly off topic: I live in Birmingham, England – setting for the gangland epic concerned. A local firm which makes various pork-based “nibbles” (a favourite snack here in England’s West Midlands), has cashed in on the popular television series, by launching a line which it calls “Porky Blinders”. I’ve tried to do a link; but can only suggest Googling “porky blinders pork scratchings”: among the first “hits” therefrom, is a headline “Images for porky blinders pork scratchings”. The furthest-left of the pictures shown immediately below said headline, depicts the matching cartoon. I just find the drawing, showing a pig in menacing pose and 1921 gangster garb, marvellously silly… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504.md?page=6)