Wish I could remember!

chinstrap

chinstrap

Active member
What a great idea for a thread.

I think the first thing I collected was as a very young school-boy in England in the late 1950 's , when another lad brought some badges and medals to school to sell. I bought a Belgian 1914-18 commemorative medal. I'm working on an ipad just now and I don't know how to include a photo, but it's a very elegant, bell-shaped medal, featuring the helmeted head of a Belgian soldier. Still my favourite design. He also brought in a 3rd Reich flak- gunner's badge and Japanese battle flag, belonging to his Dad, which I think were confiscated by the teacher. I recall that both of us thought that owning a picklehaube would be as good as it could ever get!

Other memories:

1.My Mum keeping my brother and me quiet during a school holiday by buying two bayonets. ( ten shillings/ 50 p each ) from a junk shop. He got the French 19th century Gras, and I got the German WW1 saw-back.

2. An old lady in our village giving me a small collection of badges and buttons she'd been given by local lads during WW1. These included a Royal Flying Corps badge.

3. As a young teenager, trekking into Manchester by train to spend my Christmas and Birthday money at the ' Old Curiosity Shop' and walking back through the streets of the city with pockets full of medals and badges, and with bayonets wrapped in newspaper-probably a jail sentence now. The shop was full of military headgear, all way beyond my means, but I vividly remember the beautiful shiny German helmet with the big eagle on top, which meant nothing to me then!!! Anyone for time travel?


I could go on, but I'll spare you. Happy collecting.

Patrick
 
Gus

Yes-120d then and 50p now. I'm impressed by your mastery of the British currency system pre-1971! Ten shillings could also be 240 half-pennies or 480 farthings, depending upon how far you want to go. Everybody in Britain understood the system and was good at mental arithmetic. Think it must have been changed for the benefit of all those bemused tourists!


For all those for whom this is gibberish there were 20 shillings in a pound, and twelve pennies in each shilling.


Good grief, I must be getting old!

Patrick
 
Hey Patrick, I was in England in 1972 when I was still in high school, the change was still new and some shop keepers were still converting decimal prices to £/s/d to add items up , then converting back to new pence.
You have rather simplified the coinage system by omitting the Guinea, Florin and half crown. The Pound was 20 shillings, but the Guinea was 21 shillings, the Florin was 2 shillings and the Half crown was 2 1/2 shillings. then there is the Groat that was a third of a shilling, a half Groat that was a sixth of a shilling and the Threepence was a quarter shilling and a six pence was a half shilling. It seams to me there were other coins that were different amounts of shillings, but I can not remember anymore. I learned what most were worth, as the old coinage was still being circulated with the new with the exception of the coins less than a shilling. I did find out that the new half pence would work for an American dime in the coin machines at school when it got back.
I thought I would through tis out just to make Joe's head hurt a bit more.:)
 
Gus,

I had thought of going through all this explanation as well, but I thought it would be too much for all the members (apart from yourself of course)brought up with a decimal currency! To be fair, groats and half groats went out in 1856- at least something was before our time!

You have an excellent memory.

Patrick
 
chinstrap said:
Gus,



You have an excellent memory.

Patrick
Click to expand...

Sometime I have trouble remembering to put my pants on in the morning, wintertime is nice in that I remember when the cold hits my legs, I go back and put them on.
 
Ahhmm....to continue on Up the Kyber..... farm life seems to be different in Idaho, it produces a unique personality. I think most British eccentrics could find a happy home there! Great post Patrick, thanks for sharing! Gus, thanks as always for putting a smile on my face with your comments.
PS...Patrick you obviously got the better deal on the German sawback!
 
How much was a 'bob'? :-k Monetary systems area always fun to learn. I had a lot of fun with Koruna in the Czech Republic and Zloty in Poland (Sorry, can't make the Polish 'crossed L' for a 'w' sound... not too difficult to figure exchange rates in those places. So, how much was a bob again?

Never mind, a bob is slang for a shilling. 5d today. 12d pre-1971. Did I get that right?

:D Ron
 
Ron, you certainly did, except it's 5p (pence) today.

Just to confuse people even more, although a shilling was twelve pence we used 'd' instead of 'p' pre-decimalisation. Pounds , shillings and pence were known as L.S.D. originating from the Latin librae,solidi and denarii. As Michael Caine might say 'Not many people know that.' Apologies to those who've never heard of him!

Patrick
 
chinstrap said:
Ron, you certainly did, except it's 5p (pence) today.

Just to confuse people even more, although a shilling was twelve pence we used 'd' instead of 'p' pre-decimalisation. Pounds , shillings and pence were known as L.S.D. originating from the Latin librae,solidi and denarii. As Michael Caine might say 'Not many people know that.' Apologies to those who've never heard of him!

Patrick
Click to expand...

That's no problem for me, since a US 'sixteen penny' nail is abbreviated 16d, so it make sense. Of course there are also 8d, 10d etc. nails as well... pretty expensive for one nail! But then, that's before machines made them.

:D Ron
 
The term "penny" is actually a unit of weight measurement and not really money. The term came to be used for the one pence coin as that is its weight. It was then used for the US one cent piece because of the common use of the term in the "old days when we lived under the King".

I use to have a this nightmare, where it was 1969 and I was a shop in the UK. There was this great helmet for sale, the price was 5 pound, 3 shillings, and 7 pence. The own of the shop liked me, so he gave a 20% discount. I would spend the rest of the night trying to figure out how much that was. :D

OK, now that we have figured out pounds, shillings, and pence, can someone explain farthings, crowns, guineas, and sovereigns. Is it any wonder why the rest of the English speaking world uses dollars and cents?
 
Take a look:

http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/moneyold.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The explanation worked for me if I made a table showing the various nick-names, values, etc. ... not that I really memorized it.

:D Ron
 
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