# Happy decimalisation day anniversary, U.K.! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 15, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919 "2021-02-15T02:58:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/1 "2021-02-15T02:58:34Z")
15 February 1971 is when the U.K. changed over to decimal based currency, eliminating the shilling. £1 now equalled 100 New Pence. I’ve got quite a collection of coins from around that time period due to family members traveling in the U.K. 50 years since anyone had to deal with the crazy 20 Shillings to a Pound nonsense along with all the odd coin values. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/045Pm78sPkQ/maxresdefault.jpg "1971 - the day Britain went Decimal") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=045Pm78sPkQ) > **[BBC ON THIS DAY | 15 | 1971: D-Day delivers new UK currency](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/15/newsid_2543000/2543665.stm?fbclid=IwAR3QREykQeULU-tEqXdwA5hXzM2Pp25odFGBoEUuiD-ucFIhXFX5_RPvp_g)** > > The British Government launches a new decimal currency across the country. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/2 "2021-02-15T03:48:52Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > 50 years since anyone had to deal with the crazy 20 Shillings to a Pound nonsense along with all the odd coin values. The nonsense part was more along the lines of having 12 pence per shilling, not having a coin that was worth 1/20th of a pound (whether it’s a shilling or 5p). ---
**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:** [February 15, 2021, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/3 "2021-02-15T09:56:09Z")
One of my earliest memories is watching a BBC News story on whether people should stop using the term “New Pence”, since the transition was pretty much sorted, and nobody really needed to think about “old pence” any more. I don’t suppose I can have been more than three at the time - funny the things your memory holds on to ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/4 "2021-02-15T10:28:51Z")
I grew up in the 70s, and missed the switch over (was a babe in arms), but I remember shillings knocking around in the guise of ‘new’ 5ps for years and years. ---
**Author:** ![its\_the\_daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bb73d2/32.png) [@its\_the\_daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/its_the_daddy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/5 "2021-02-15T10:50:07Z")
I was at University; had the habit of calling at the Bank each week to draw out ‘spending money’ (accommodation and food were provided), £5/0/0d mostly for beer. That week, I asked for my £5.00 in change, to get my hands on the new coins. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/6 "2021-02-15T11:04:46Z")
I was at university when it happened. It was the first time in my life that all the money and coins were brand new - the second was when the Euro was brought in, while I was living in Germany. For about a year there was talk of "decimal diddlers’ who converted their prices to their advantage, some shops showed the pre-decimal values underneath the decimal price, and “new pence” was replacee by “pee” within a few months. It seems to be the oldies that have the biggest problems with a change of currency, the media were full of tales of hapless bewildered pensioners. I was not phazed by the whole thing, but then I been been traveling around Europe and using various currencies, all of which were decimal, so it was no big deal for me. I am amused by the fact that the French shops were still putting the price in francs under the Euro price for at least a decade after the changeover. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/7 "2021-02-15T11:10:35Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > I grew up in the 70s, and missed the switch over (was a babe in arms), but I remember shillings knocking around in the guise of ‘new’ 5ps for years and years. ditto, and the terminology has a habit of sticking. I’ll still use the term “ten-bob” to refer to a 50p piece even though I never knew shillings in real life (and now I rarely handle cash of any kind) I also fondly recall sitting with my grandma as we played [bingo](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/seaside-bingo.html) on various childhood holidays and the cards were lit up and activated by a coin slot that took sixpences (2 1/2 p). This was true right through to the end of the 1970’s Edit - to be clear, as SanVito implied, the shilling and two shilling coins were very much still around but I never knew them as anything other than 5p and 10p pieces but for some reason the 50p=“ten-bob” has remained ---
**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:** [February 15, 2021, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/8 "2021-02-15T12:03:27Z")
At the launch, there was also a 1/2p coin. It was diminutive and easily lost and inflation soon made it obsolete. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/9 "2021-02-15T12:41:28Z")
Don’t think your username hasn’t been noted! ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/10 "2021-02-15T12:46:27Z")
For a few years in the mid-1800’s, quarter farthings (1/16th of a penny) were minted - for use in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). You would need 3,840 quarter farthings to equal one pound, which would weigh about 4.5 kg (or 10 lb). ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/11 "2021-02-15T13:09:21Z")
I remember it well. Back then, they’d price things 9 1/2p, or 99 1/2p. All those 99 1/2p stores must have been gutted to have to cut everything back to 99p\*. (Joke, I have no evidence for this). ---
**Author:** ![cytop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f17d59/32.png) [@cytop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cytop)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/12 "2021-02-15T13:41:46Z")
I still miss the copper (1ᵈ), truppenny bit (3ᵈ), tanner (6ᵈ), bob (1/-), 2 bob (2/- or florin), half crown (2/6 but also known as a ‘half dollar’) and not forgetting the ten bob note mentioned earlier. Don’t think I was ever rich enough for a £1 note… but I was a wee little thing at the time. ---
**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:** [February 15, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/13 "2021-02-15T13:45:57Z")
Famously, one thing that was known to come down in price was admission to Kew Gardens. It had been 3d (old money) and came down to 1p (new money=2.4d old money). It’s now £10. One linguistic oddity noticed for a few years after decimalisation was that whereas we elided the vowel in the word “pence” in Oldmoneyspeak for plurals (so tuppence sounded more like tupp’nce), and naturally said “one penny” for the singular, in Newmoneyspeak, people might not always use “pee” for the new money, especially when counting out change, but separated out and slightly emphasised “pence” when they meant new pence - to the point of saying (and I heard this quite often) “one pence”. Inflation and electronification soon wore that away. ---
**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:** [February 15, 2021, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/14 "2021-02-15T15:28:41Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > (so tuppence sounded more like tupp’nce) No - twopence sounded like tuppence. And threepence sounded like throopence. Give or take a myriad of regional accents of course. ---
**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:** [February 16, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/15 "2021-02-16T00:10:45Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Famously, one thing that was known to come down in price was admission to Kew Gardens. It had been 3d (old money) and came down to 1p (new money=2.4d old money). It’s now £10. That’s some markup! This [inflation calculator](https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1971?amount=0.01) is telling me the correct inflation-adjusted figure for today should be 14p ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2021, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/16 "2021-02-16T00:39:30Z")
The heptagonal 50 pence coin was an innovation at the time replacing the 10 shilling note. The only other multisided coin was the three penny piece, commonly known as the thruppenny bit. It was a time when the politics of the country was very influenced by the power of labour unions and strikes over pay were common. The new fifty pence piece was jokingly referred to at the time as the ‘the dockers thruppenny bit’ I suspect that, soon enough, the use of coins and cash will become quite rare. The current pandemic has given cashless card transactions a big boost. ---
**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:** [February 16, 2021, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/17 "2021-02-16T08:17:46Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > That’s some markup! This [inflation calculator](https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1971?amount=0.01) is telling me the correct inflation-adjusted figure for today should be 14p Well, since then we’ve had several rounds of governments insisting such organisations must pay their own way and make themselves exciting attractions, as well as investing a lot in research and training and all the rest of it. One other thing a commemorative newspaper article reminded me of was that, for a time, some wily people managed to use a new penny in a machine that hadn’t yet been converted from accepting the old sixpenny pieces - and sixpence was the standard price in a slot machine for chocolate and sweets. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2021, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/18 "2021-02-16T08:33:08Z")
At one time you could use the shilling coin in German vending machines instead of a Mark - quite an increase in value. ---
**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:** [February 16, 2021, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/19 "2021-02-16T11:19:36Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Famously, one thing that was known to come down in price was admission to Kew Gardens. It had been 3d (old money) and came down to 1p (new money=2.4d old money). It’s now £10 Kew Gardens is well worth £10. The hothouse alone would be worth that, let alone the 132 hectares of trees and lakes. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919/20 "2021-02-16T12:45:10Z")
> [@Brayne\_Ded](#): > > I am amused by the fact that the French shops were still putting the price in francs under the Euro price for at least a decade after the changeover. Wait, what? I spent a few weeks in France in 2005 (Paris and some villages near the Swiss border) and did not see ANY prices in francs, just euros. That was just three years after the conversion. Where did you see this a decade later? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-decimalisation-day-anniversary-u-k/932919.md?page=2)