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Prior to 1971, the United Kingdom had been using the pounds, shillings, and pence currency system. Decimalisation was announced by Chancellor James Callaghan on 1 March 1966; one pound would be subdivided into 100 pence, instead of 240 pence as previously was the case. [8] This required new coins to be minted, to replace the pre-decimal ones.
Amounts over a pound are normally spoken thus: "five pounds forty". A value with less than ten pence over the pound is sometimes spoken like this: "one pound and a penny", "three pounds and fourpence". The slang term "bit" has almost disappeared from use completely, although in Scotland a fifty pence is sometimes referred to as a "ten bob bit".
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
Converts the pre-1971 subunits of the pound sterling to its modern decimal subunits. Also supports conversion of guineas (21 shillings) and marks (13s 4d; or 160d); if the main units (pounds, shillings, and pence), guineas, and marks are all used at once it returns the (decimalised) sum of all units.
Sterling (ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. [3] The pound is the main unit of sterling, [4] [c] and the word pound is also used to refer to the British currency generally, [7] often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling. [4]
The British pre-decimal penny was a denomination of sterling coinage worth 1 ⁄ 240 of one pound or 1 ⁄ 12 of one shilling.Its symbol was d, from the Roman denarius.It was a continuation of the earlier English penny, and in Scotland it had the same monetary value as one pre-1707 Scottish shilling.
A sampler in the Guildhall Museum of Rochester illustrates the conversion between pence and shillings and shillings and pounds. Old till in Ireland, with "shortcut" keys in various £sd denominations (lower numbers) and their "new pence" equivalent (upper numbers) Toy coin, which teaches children the value of a shilling
At the time of the 1702 London Mint Assay by Sir Isaac Newton, the silver content of British coinage was defined to be one troy ounce of sterling silver for 62 pence, or 502 mg per penny. Therefore, the value of the monetary pound sterling was equivalent to only 3.87 troy ounces (120 g) of sterling silver. This was the standard from 1601 to 1816.