40 years ago today ...

[Nottseagull]

That will teach me to post quickly at work. I am off for a lie down!

There's no need for the sarcasm. In fact, there were only ten posts to glance through before yours, and three of them mentioned the error.

 

[Return of the Rev]

I might not be able to remember the exact date of decimalisation but I do know that this isn't true. There was a jingle in the pre-decimalisation public info films (sung by The Scaffold) that exhorted us to "use your old coppers in six penny lots" as that equated to 2.5p exactly. It wasn't until August of that year that pennies and threepenny bits ceased to be legal tender
...add the addition of VAT in January 1973 and the Barber engineered boom and you have a quadruple whammy. I can't imagine we'll ever see inflation hitting 22% again.

Or pay rises! merit 11% inflation 18%=29% better than school this work lark! thanks amex

 

[Return of the Rev]

That will teach me to post quickly at work. I am off for a lie down!

have a long lunch sir!

 

[Nottseagull]

six shillings 30p

Indeed, it was a rip off. In 1968-69 admission was only 4/- (East Terrace, adult).

 

[Lord Bracknell]

It was a real pain calculating percentages in £ s d, and even would have been awkward if we had calculators.

I was in Italy at the time and the currency conversion rate was 1,500 lire to the pound. Curiously, it was easier to do the mental arithmetic to convert lire into £sd than it was to do the conversion into the new dismal currency.

Going up in 100 lire jumps, I can still do it:-

1s 4d
2s 8d
4s
5s 4d
6s 8d
8s
.... etc, etc.

I guess no young 'un will understand why that's an easy sequence to remember.

The downside of being in Italy in February 1971 was that when I next came home (in August), I had to get used to all the new coins, but six months later than everyone else. People in shops just treated me like I was a complete idiot who hadn't been able to grasp the simplest of things that everyone else had been coping with for ages.

 

[snowlee]

There are many new products arrival and the price is ....

 

[Nottseagull]

There are many new products arrival and the price is lower than before. Wang

You mean lower than £sd prices?
Reported as spam.

 

[Nottseagull]

People in shops just treated me like I was a complete idiot who hadn't been able to grasp the simplest of things that everyone else had been coping with for ages.

You should have put on an Italian accent!

Thanks for restoring that thread title BTW.

 

[PFJ]

I had this conversation only last week with the younger members of the office. In other words , anybody under 40.
They had absolutly no comprehension of the 'tanner' the thrupenny joey and the fact that your average penny was not only as big as a wagon wheel but had a choice of at least 5 different monarchs on the heads side.

 

[Nottseagull]

Someone must have seen you coming as one new penny = 2.4 old ones. Probably too late to do anything about it though.

Well spotted, I'm sure LondonBlue has always thought that 1p = 7d.

 

[Storer68]

I might not be able to remember the exact date of decimalisation but I do know that this isn't true. There was a jingle in the pre-decimalisation public info films (sung by The Scaffold) that exhorted us to "use your old coppers in six penny lots" as that equated to 2.5p exactly. It wasn't until August of that year that pennies and threepenny bits ceased to be legal tender



...add the addition of VAT in January 1973 and the Barber engineered boom and you have a quadruple whammy. I can't imagine we'll ever see inflation hitting 22% again.

Year Inflation Multiplier
1982 8.6% 2.6
1981 11.9% 2.9
1980 18.0% 3.2
1979 13.4% 3.8
1978 8.3% 4.3
1977 15.8% 4.6
1976 16.5% 5.4
1975 24.2% 6.3
1974 16.0% 7.8
1973 9.2% 9.0
1972 7.1%

 

[Nottseagull]

In one month during 1975 or 1976 the annual rate of inflation hit 26.9%.

 

[Gwylan]

1975 24.2% 6.3

In one month during 1975 or 1976 the annual rate of inflation hit 26.9%.

Ouch... even worse than I thought.

And to think that we get nervous when ROI goes past 3% these days

 

[Nottseagull]

They had absolutly no comprehension of the 'tanner' the thrupenny joey and the fact that your average penny was not only as big as a wagon wheel but had a choice of at least 5 different monarchs on the heads side.

They were called 'threpenny bits', not joeys! They were small, thick, twelve sided coins with a brass like appearance. The joeywas a nickname for the groat (4d piece), although it may have (incorrectly?) been used for the silver threepenny piece. This was about the diameter of the current 5p, but thinner; it was last minted before the War, from memory.
For the younger readers, the old penny was actually only 31 mm across and not the size of the chocolate biscuit! However, the 'tupenny' bit of 1797 came close, being 41mm across and about four times as thick; indeed, it became known as the cartwheel.
Also, Victorian pennies often turned up in change right up to D-Day. From memory, the majority of these were dated 1899, 1900 or 1901. Most of the rest were from the 1890s, although I managed to collect an almost complete set (starting from 1860) just from checking change in the late 1960s.

 

[Gwylan]

... your average penny was not only as big as a wagon wheel but had a choice of at least 5 different monarchs on the heads side.

This has only just struck me as unusual. It seems incredible to think that you could (and did) get pennies that had Victoria's head on them - the idea that a coin more than a 100 years old could be legal tender would probably astound today's youngsters.

 

[Blackadder]

There's no need for the sarcasm. In fact, there were only ten posts to glance through before yours, and three of them mentioned the error.

No sarcasm intended. I was mocking myself for missing it!

 

[Nottseagull]

This has only just struck me as unusual. It seems incredible to think that you could (and did) get pennies that had Victoria's head on them - the idea that a coin more than a 100 years old could be legal tender would probably astound today's youngsters.

Victorian and Edwardian halfpennies also turned up, but they must have been much scarcer as I don't have much of a collection of them. As for the silver coins, pre-1947 examples were fairly rare as their silver content exceeded their face value. The same thing happened with the current 1p and 2p coins; pre-1992 2p pieces contain 3p worth of copper. However, there is no shortage of these in circulation, either because it is not worth the time identifying them (easy with a magnet!) or the fact that it is illegal to melt them down.

 

[GT49er]

It was indeed a savage an inept inflationary tool - the real rip-offs (and huge profits) came with things that were sold annually - a 9old pence Christams card cost 9P the next year, same with fireworks - a sixpenny firework was 6P a year later. 240% inflation!

Governments doing the best for the people again!!!! - nothing ever changes!

 

[m20gull]

I don't remember the detail but I still recall the shock that the price of the Mars Bar in the sweet shop opposite the school went up to more than it was supposed to.

 

[Storer68]

The "Godless Florin. The first decimal (one tenth of a pound) coin introduced in Briatin in 1849