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With decimalisation, the pound kept its old value and name in each currency, but the shilling was abolished, and the pound was divided into 100 new pence (abbreviated to "p"). In the UK, the new coins initially featured the word “new”, but in due course this was dropped. Each new penny was worth 2.4 old pence ("d.") in each currency.
The introduction of decimal currency caused a new casual usage to emerge, where any value in pence is spoken using the suffix pee: e.g. "twenty-three pee" or, in the early years, "two-and-a-half pee" rather than the previous "tuppence-ha'penny". Amounts over a pound are normally spoken thus: "five pounds forty".
Prior to decimalisation in 1971, there were 12 pence (written as 12d) in a shilling (written as 1s or 1/-) and 20 shillings in a pound, written as £1 (occasionally "L" was used instead of the pound sign, £). There were therefore 240 pence in a pound. For example, 2 pounds 14 shillings and 5 pence could have been written as £2 14s 5d or £2/14/5
The British decimal two pence coin (often shortened to 2p in writing and speech) is a denomination of sterling coinage equalling 2 ⁄ 100 of a pound. Since the coin's introduction on 15 February 1971, the year British currency was decimalised , its obverse has featured four profiles of Queen Elizabeth II . [ 1 ]
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Before Decimal Day in 1971, sterling used the Carolingian monetary system , under which the largest unit was a pound (£), divisible into 20 shillings (s), each worth 12 pence (d), the value of two pre-decimal sixpence coins. Following decimalisation, the old sixpence had a value of 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 new pence (£0.025).
The new and the old circulated side by side as florins prior to Decimal Day (15 February 1971) and as ten pence pieces after. [40] Florins (usually dated 1947 or later) remained in circulation after Decimal Day. In 1987, following a study of the currency, the Thatcher government announced its intent to issue a new ten pence piece, reduced in ...
The British shilling, abbreviated "1s" or "1/-", was a unit of currency and a denomination of sterling coinage worth 1 ⁄ 20 of one pound, or twelve pence.It was first minted in the reign of Henry VII as the testoon, and became known as the shilling, from the Old English scilling, [1] sometime in the mid-16th century.