Were there any protests when the UK moved away from its old duodecimal currency?

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

@Usram

I find a few references to a TV campaign with the jingle “decimal shops take decimal change” and perhaps “LSD shops take LSD change” (but did people really refer to the previous system as “LSD”??). Or this advice from the Decimal Currency Board before the change: “Pay decimal prices in decimal shops and £ s d in £ s d shops.”

Which suggests that they at least anticipated a period in which shops were either decimal or £sd, but not both.

Thanks for digging out this cite (saves me the trouble). As I’ve already said, I do remember decimal shops and £sd shops, though it appears I’m the only one who does. And yes, the old currency was really referred to in everyday speech as “LSD”. (The £ sign is a stylised capital L.) It stood for “librae, solidi, denarii” which were the nearest Latin equivalents to “pounds, shillings, pence”.

@Celyn

One sad thing, though - it was somehow rather fun (albeit perhaps only to a child) sometimes to get really old coins in one’s change - long dead kings and queens of history book dates.

The oldest coins that were still valid at the time of decimalisation were sixpences and shillings dating back to 1816, in the reign of George III. Fat chance of finding anything that old, though. The oldest coin I ever got in my change was an 1870 penny from the reign of Queen Victoria.

[Cicero]

And even in Australia we had many pennies with Queen Victoria’s image stamped on them. I like them as a keepsake. They are worth nothing however. Maybe a penny.