Historic Exchange Rates

Factual Questions
1

Math people I need your help! In 1912 I have 5 shillings and 4 pence, so today that is worth 16 pounds, 39 shillings and that is worth $23.08. Is that correct? (Knowing my math skills probably not.) Can someone verify this for me?

Thanks!

Nausicaa

2

Is that pounds sterling, as in U.K.? Is that U.S. dollars? If U.K., is that strict conversion into decimal currency? Is it relevent that s 1912 shilling, if melted for its silver, probably would be worth $999,999,999.69 Canadian?

3

And at any rate, “16 pounds, 39 shillings” is an odd way to express a monetary amount. In the old system, 20 shillings made a pound, so that would actually be 17 pounds, 19 shillings. Do you mean 16 pounds, 39 (new) pence in modern day UK currency? If so, the exchange rate today is 1.4255 dollars per pound according to one source, so I get $23.36. $23.08 may well have been right at the exchange rate from the time you were posting.

4

What I am looking for is a conversion from the 1912 currency (pounds, shillings, pence) to today’s pound sterling and then convert that to American dollars. Am I asking too much?

(I swear I found a site that did that but can I find it again? No, of course not!)

5

I believe that in 1912 an English pound was equivalent to $5. US at the time. Does that help?

6

The very site:

Yahoo offers a currency converter. As of Friday, £1 equals $1.42 so your 1912 sum equals $23.28. Could change Monday.

7

Please note that there are two ways of doing this:

First, you could convert the amount of British currency in 1912 to the equivalent amount of British currency in 2001 using a conversion figure that calculates how much the cost of living in the U.K. has increased in the meantime. Then you can convert this to American currency using the exchange rate of 2001.

Second, you could convert the amount of British currency in 1912 to American currency in 1912 using the exchange rate of 1912. Then you can convert this to American currency in 2001 using a conversion figure that calculates how much the cost of living in the U.S. has increased.

Surprisingly, these two figures are not always equal.

8

Thanks guys! I’m doing a paper for college and this will help out a lot!

N