British coinage has a long history. The Royal Mint itself was formed well over 1100 years ago, but in this article I am going to describe the current coinage and the coins of the century or so before that.
The basis of the UK currency is the Pound Sterling (GBP £).
The UK, Great Britain and England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
As a side here I’ll explain to those outside of the UK that I am English, I am British and I am from the UK! Most persons use the terms synonymously, but in a nutshell Great Britain is the combining of England, Scotland and Wales; the United Kingdom (UK) is Britain plus Northern Ireland. The four countries are very proud of their own nations! These days, we tend to use Britain rather than ‘Great Britain’.
Ireland, as in southern Ireland or Eire, is a discerned country and separately part of the EU.
I mention this because there are at times territorial variations in designs, though the cash is legal tender in all the UK countries. The UK is in the EU (European Union) but is not share of the Euro currency and is improbable to be, ever.
Current Coinage
Since decimalisation on 15 February 1971, we have £1 = 100p, that is One Pound = 100 pence.
All coins carry the head of the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Inscriptions are in Latin and will incorporate respective phrases such as Regina (Queen), Dei Gratia or D.G. (by the grace of God) and Fidei Defensor or F.D. (defender of the faith). The reverse has galore dissimilar designs, a heap of change ofttimes and may show national, the territorial variations or emblems of England (3 lions), Scotland (lion or thistle), Wales (dragon or leek) or Ireland (harp).
The Pound is still colloquially called a ‘quid’. The £5 and £10 notes are known as ‘fiver’ and ‘tenner’ respectively.
In the early days of decimalisation we added the words ‘New Pence’ or ‘New Penny’ even though since 1982 we no longer do this. Some coins have been scaled down in size since their introductory launch. The basic coins are:
One Penny: The least denomination coin presently in circulation. Copper (actually copper plated steel).
Two Pence: A more prominent copper coin.
Five Pence: a little cupro-nickel coin. Resized in 1990.
Ten Pence: cupro-nickel coin. Resized in 1992.
Twenty Pence: heptagonal cupro-nickel coin
Fifty Pence: more prominent heptagonal cupro-nickel coin. Resized in 1997.
One Pound: made in nickel-brass and introduced in 1983 to replace the £1 banknote (coins last longer than notes) though Scotland made £1 notes for a while after this. Diameter 22.5mm, weighs 9.5g.
Two Pound: a bimetallic coins introduced in 1998 (although the basi are dated 1997).
Others:
Half Penny: launched in 1971 but demonetised in 1984 when inflation made it near worthless.
Crown: not in circulation but is legal tender, crowns are freed as commemorative issues at random times. Originally 25p, the crown was re-denominated to £5 in 1990.
Common Banknotes are £5, £10, £20 and £50.
Pre-Decimal Coinage
Decimalisation was on 15 February 1971. Prior to that the currency was more-or-less unchanged since Victorian days. Even in 1971 you could be lucky sufficient to find a worn Victorian penny in your pocket; it was the same size as the Elizabeth II one.
While the Pound Sterling was the same, the breakdown was very dissimilar in the pre-Decimal era:
One Pound = 20 shillings = 240 pennies.
Or One shilling = 12 pennies.
One old penny = 0.417 new pence. In the decimal switch-over, some coins became equivalent, for example 2 shillings was the same as 10 new pence, 1 shilling was 5 new pence.
It was written as £sd. (d was from ‘denarius’, the little Roman coin). 2 shillings and 8 pence would be written as 2/8 or 2/8d. We would say ‘Two and eight’ or ‘Two and eightpence’.Two shillings alone would be written 2/-. Adding long lists of prices up would surely test your mental arithmetic! School kids learned tables up to 12 times to aid penny calculations.
Before 1920, Silver coins were actual sterling (92.5%) silver. This was scaled down to 50% silver and in 1947 no silver at all was applied and cupro-nickel became standard.
Basic Coins:
Penny: 1d. a big copper coin.
HalfPenny: copper coin. Pronounced ‘ape-knee’.
Threepence: 3d, pronounced ‘thruppence’ or ‘threpney-bit’, 12 sided in brass. Before 1936 it was a little silver coin, colloquially known as a ‘Joey’.
Sixpence: 6d. Silver, Known as a ‘tanner’.
Shilling: 1/-. Silver. Been around since 1706. Shillings are known as ‘Bobs’.
Two Shillings or Florin: 2/-. Although the coin is officially a Florin it was seldom called by that name; most would say ‘a 2-bob piece’.
Half-Crown: 2/6. As the crown was more as a commemorative coin, the half-Crown was efficaciously the greatest denomination coin in existence and around the war years would carry substantial spending power. My Dad employed to say in regards to the 1950′s as an ode to 80′s inflation: ‘I do not forget when you could go to the pictures [cinema], buy a packet of fags [cigarettes], have a couple of pints [of beer] and still have modify from half-a-crown’. He could too; today you would need £20.
Half-crowns were referred to as half-a-dollar as in the 1940s there were four US dollars to the pound, so a crown (in face value) was efficaciously worth a dollar.
Banknotes took the higher values – 10 shilling, £1, £5, £10.
Others:
The Farthing (quarter penny) was withdrawn in 1960. The Victorians had half, third and quarter farthings. The Victorians also had double-florins (4 shillings) and Groats (4 pence).
Most of the coins were the same size and design from the Victorian era to decimalisation, so you may get pennies and shillings with the following monarchs: Victoria (1837-1902 as young, jubilee and old head), Edward VII (1901-1910), George V (1910-1936), Edward VIII (abdicated 1936, dies made but coins not in usual circulation), George VI (1936-1952), Elizabeth (1952-present). Succeeding monarchs head face the opposite direction by tradition.
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