# In Britain, what's the difference between a pound and a guinea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 4, 2010, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898 "2010-06-04T07:08:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gwtw11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ab097/32.png) [@gwtw11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwtw11)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/1 "2010-06-04T07:08:45Z")
Cecil, when did you last pick up a British newspaper and find something advertised in guineas? I’m guessing round about 1969. I can’t think of any other contemporary usage of the term “guinea” in the monetary sense other than in the worlds of horseracing (where by tradition some races have names like “the 1000 guineas” - presumably once a substantial purse) and livestock auctions. For deceptive advertising, we stick to the £9.99 system, just like you guys. ETA: [In Britain, what’s the difference between a pound and a guinea? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/300/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea) ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/2 "2010-06-04T07:31:44Z")
[One shilling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_%28British_coin%29) is the simple answer. ---
**Author:** ![Richmonde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e47c2d/32.png) [@Richmonde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richmonde)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/3 "2010-06-04T08:31:10Z")
Before decimalisation in the UK, very grand ladies’ clothes and hat shops gave prices in guineas. Lawyers (and other professionals?) were paid in guineas. “Rank is but the guinea stamp” wrote Robert Burns. The “100 Guineas” is a horse race. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/4 "2010-06-04T08:53:26Z")
> [@gwtw11](#): > > I can’t think of any other contemporary usage of the term “guinea” in the monetary sense other than in the worlds of horseracing (where by tradition some races have names like “the 1000 guineas” - presumably once a substantial purse) and livestock auctions. I think the big auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s price stuff in guineas don’t they? Or am I out of date on that, too? But yeah “only one guinea” comment is mystifying to me, too. I haven’t seen anything like it contemporaneous to my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/5 "2010-06-04T09:43:11Z")
I don’t know about Sotheby’s _etc_, but I agree that, although certain business DID like to price things in guineas long after guineas had ceased to exist, it wouldn’t have made sense, even when Cecil was writing in 1977, to price something a “only a guinea”. Well, all right, I cannot exactly guarantee that it did not happen, and I do remember larger items being advertised in guineas because pricing something at 100 guineas instead of pounds might just fool people for long enough, but I \*really \*don’t remember the “only a guinea” thing. In fact, I think it seemed to me that after decimalisation, one really didn’t see the guinea-price trick any more, at least not in high street shops and not in terms of advertising. (My pocket money did not really let me buy antiques or racehorses, unfortunately). I suppose we were all confused enough with all that new money and the horribly difficult way of counting it. 😃 Or as Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman put it: > [@](#): > > “NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and one Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.” _Edited to add_: Now I wonder, why DID we change to decimal anyway? The old system was a bit mad, but we were sort of used to it. Of course, being at primary school at the time was odd, because the real world money had one set of rules and all the money “sums” at school had the new way. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/6 "2010-06-04T20:20:07Z")
£sd was a big nuisance for computers and other calculating machines, though, by the time it actually arrived, things were sailing along fairly well. For whatever it’s worth, I remember that Philishave electric shaver adverts in the Underground _ca._ 1968-1969 quoted prices in guineas, and I think James Smith (in New Oxford Street) did the same for their umbrellas, shooting sticks, _etc._. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/7 "2010-06-04T20:46:15Z")
FYI-That column was written in 1977. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/8 "2010-06-04T22:05:15Z")
Yeah, that’s the thing, really. The sneakiness of putting prices in guineas would have been not nearly so widespread by 1977, although we could hardly have expected Cecil to pop over to Britain just for a laugh at our funny, druggily-named money. And of course having a pet pound-and-five-pee pig never sounded as cute as a guinea pig. (OK, ignorance and all that - I know they are cavies, really). 🙂 I sort of miss the cute thrupenny bits and the ha’pennies with a ship on them. And big pennies! Hey I wonder if all the U.K. Dopers should re-start the guinea habit. We could go around superglueing those silly fivepenny pieces to pound coins, as they’re not a whole lot of use for anything else. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/9 "2010-06-07T00:19:16Z")
When decimalisation first occured in the UK, the term “New Pence” was used. I think they missed a golden opportunity to have a unit of currency named after a country, the “New Guinea”. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/10 "2010-06-07T00:50:21Z")
No, you didn’t miss out any such thing. It’s not as though back in the day we were talking about Guineas constantly. Back then, as now, we spoke of them in relation to the gee gees. And what was a pound and a shilling (described however) back then is a pound and five pence now. Northing complex at all, seriously 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/11 "2010-06-07T07:07:34Z")
For a certain period at the end of the 17th and much of the 18th centuries, while the basic money of account was the pound sterling, the roughly-a-pound coin was the guinea – which was when first minted intended to have £1 in gold content, but fluctuated wildly, getting up to 30 shillings (£1.50) in the wake of the South Sea Bubble before settling down at 21 shilling (£1.05). The guinea was issued from 1660 to 1813; the sovereign (previously from 1489 to 1604) was revived to replace it as a coin valued at one pound, and issued as such from 1817 until 1932, and again from 1957 on, with the tie to the value of one pound sterling no longer valid. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/12 "2010-06-07T18:43:35Z")
The whole problem was that the relative prices of silver and gold kept changing. (This had been a problem for as long as there had been minted money.) When the new one-pound gold coin was established (frequently known as a “sovereign”), they started putting a little less silver into the silver coins, in the hopes that this would fix the problem of people melting down silver coins every time the price of silver went up, and then chopping up their gold coins into little bits because there were no more silver coins to make change with. By cheating on the value of the silver coins, they were putting in a safety buffer. It worked pretty well for a while, and most of the world adopted the same system, until the huge expenses of WWI and the Great Depression put too much strain on the whole economy. This was what the “gold standard” actually meant – the value of money was based on the gold in the gold coins. The silver coins were worth less than their face value, but, since they were small coins, people trusted the government to cover the difference. ---
**Author:** ![tex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tex)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/13 "2010-06-07T20:06:23Z")
“equal in weight to one pound of gold” … ? ? ? …as opposed to one pound of… …feathers? …dog poo? …iPhones? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/14 "2010-06-08T02:21:11Z")
> [@tex](#): > > “equal in weight to one pound of gold” … ? ? ? > > …as opposed to one pound of… …feathers? …dog poo? …iPhones? Well, they aren’t the same pounds, are they? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/15 "2010-06-08T20:29:37Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Well, they aren’t the same pounds, are they? Technically, no, IIRC. Precious metals are measured in Troy ounces, 12 ounces to the pound. Dog pooh (depending on your neighbourhood, I suppose - unless it’s Corgi pooh?) is measured in normal avoirdupois ounces, 16 to a pound. So a pound of feathers or doggie doo weighs more than a pound of gold. It’s just not worth more… And we can’t pass up the joke about the name for the one-pound coin. Someone suggested it be called the “Thatcher” because it’s thick and brassy and thinks it’s a sovereign. ---
**Author:** ![tex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@tex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tex)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/16 "2010-06-08T20:54:34Z")
> [@tex](#): > > “equal in weight to one pound of gold” … ? ? ? > > …as opposed to one pound of… …feathers? …dog poo? …iPhones? yeah, I figured I’d end up regretting that one… ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/17 "2010-06-09T16:56:29Z")
I just came in to say that I was disappointed that Cecil didn’t mention the reason that solicitors (and some other professions) continued to charge in guineas long after they were effectively obsolete - they got an extra 5%! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/18 "2010-06-09T20:58:41Z")
> [@tex](#): > > “equal in weight to one pound of gold” … ? ? ? > > …as opposed to one pound of… …feathers? …dog poo? …iPhones? I’ll tell you what. If you think their the same, I’ll take the pound of gold, and you can take the pound of dog poo. Be sure to wash your hands before dinner. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-britain-whats-the-difference-between-a-pound-and-a-guinea/541898/19 "2010-06-11T04:06:29Z")
> [@Happy\_Poster](#): > > No, you didn’t miss out any such thing. I really didn’t think I would need to put a smilie on my post. Evidently I was mistaken.