I have been reading the book "Wealth of Nations" recently and Adam Smith often talked about shillings, pounds, guinea's and pences. He also said something about how the number of shillings in a pound could vary with time. I was very confused by it. hHw do shillings, pounds, guinea's and pences relate to each other, and how do they relate to american ( or israeli, though I doubt anyone knows it) currency? Can you also explain how and why the amount of shillings in a pound could change? It would be really appreciated if you could answer before june 30th. Thank you very much.
-yafa

Guinea's were gold coins minted in England from 1663 to 1813. They had a nominal value of 20 shillings. The value may have varied with the market value of gold.

Today, a pound is fixed at 20 shillings or 240 pence. You can get current exchange rates at www.xe.net. (You can convert US dollars, English pounds and Israeli shekels in any combination.)

Hopefully, with all our brits here, someone will add whatever I missed.

what do you mean by a nomianal value of the shilling. that is one thng that was also mentioned in the book that realy confused me.
-yafa

Mahal, I though Britain went decimal, with 100 pence (plural of penny) to the pound.
Coins are:
5 p (short for pence)
10 p
20 p
1 pound
2 pounds
Notes (paper denominations) are:
5 L (short for pounds)
10 L
50 L
Maybe some bigger notes.

Their money could change like that because they weren't always on the decimal system. But it would be harder for decimal system money to change, because it's base 10 and that's that. I guess they're locked in now, just as we are.

One way our money might change is that pennies might be eliminated. This would be a bit odd, because a penny is the unit of the dollar. Maybe in future times people will ask, on sites like this, "If we're on the decimal system, how come the smallest coin is a nickel, which is 1/20 of a dollar? Huh? Huh? Why isn't it 1/100 of a dollar?"

quote:

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Originally posted by babthrower:
Mahal, I though Britain went decimal, with 100 pence (plural of penny) to the pound.
Coins are:
5 p (short for pence)
10 p
20 p
1 pound
2 pounds
Notes (paper denominations) are:
5 L (short for pounds)
10 L
50 L
Maybe some bigger notes.

Their money could change like that because they weren't always on the decimal system. But it would be harder for decimal system money to change, because it's base 10 and that's that. I guess they're locked in now, just as we are.

One way our money might change is that pennies might be eliminated. This would be a bit odd, because a penny is the unit of the dollar. Maybe in future times people will ask, on sites like this, "If we're on the decimal system, how come the smallest coin is a nickel, which is 1/20 of a dollar? Huh? Huh? Why isn't it 1/100 of a dollar?"

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I have been saying this a lot lately but it’s true. I’m still lost. It seems to be contradicting what mahal said.
-yafa

"Nominal value" means that a guinea was worth about 20 shillings, but because it was a gold coin, the value fluctuated with the market, perhaps from 19-22 shillings or something like that. This would be possible if the coin had a high gold content that made fixing a value impractical. (This is just my theory, I don't know if this is the right answer.)

The 240 pence to a pound I got from a dictionary. We'd have to have one of our British enthusiasts straighten us out on that.

Current British money:
Coinage: 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, 1 pound, 2 pounds (there's a 5 pound coin lurking around, but I haven't seen it yet)
Notes (all pounds): 5, 10, 20, 50

Pre-decimalisation:
4 farthings=1 penny
12 pence=1 shilling
20 shillings=1 pound
21 shillings=1 guinea (the 20-shilling coin referred to earlier was a sovereign, not a guinea)
There was a two-shilling piece which we called a florin, and a two-shilling-and-sixpence (¹/8 pound) coin called a half-crown. Crowns (5 shillings) were minted only to mark special occasions.
I hope this helps. In my 1950s primary school, we spent hours learning all this - I guess they do finger-painting instead now.

JoMS: Do you remember what year England went to 100 pence to a pound?

(You know, I've heard soveriegns and guineas used interchangeably, now I know why, thanks--and I'll have to write a nasty letter to Miriam Webster.)

D-Day ( or decimal day ) was February 15th 1971. On that day the United Kingdom changed from the centuries old tradition of using 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound to a new decimal 100 new pence to the pound

Further Information from here.

http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/dec.html