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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
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
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]
Australian currency was originally based on British pounds, shillings and pence. That changed in 1966, when the country converted to Australian dollars and cents, similar to the U.S. system.
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.
"Decimal" crowns were minted a few times after decimalisation of the British currency in 1971, initially with a nominal value of 25 (new) pence. However, commemorative crowns issued since 1990 have a face value of five pounds.