Decimalisation

qwerty keyboard · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2013 12:54 pm

Thanks to Mr I for today's puzzle.

14th February 1971 = £1 = 240 pennies

15th Feb; £100 = 100 new pennies and each new pennie was worth two of the old ones.

Where did the other 40 go?

BillinghamPoolie · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2013 3:03 pm

Each 'new' penny was worth 2.4 of the old ones, simples.

Pooliegan · **Joined:** Fri May 14, 2010 6:13 pm **Posts:** 624

Down the back of the sofa?

Mr Irrelevant · **Joined:** Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:25 pm **Posts:** 22544

BillinghamPoolie wrote:

Each 'new' penny was worth 2.4 of the old ones, simples.

But it wasn't was it. 1 penny was supposed to be worth half a new penny. In fact if you took four old pennies to the shop you would get the value of 2new pence. But when it got to a shilling it all went pear shaped. A shilling - 12 old pence was worth 5 new pence! Where has the two gone? By the time you got up to a quid, you two pennies had dropped in value from 1 new pence to 0.83 pence.

Either way, you lost 17% of the value.

BillinghamPoolie · **Posted:** Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:16 pm

Mr Irrelevant wrote:

BillinghamPoolie wrote:

Each 'new' penny was worth 2.4 of the old ones, simples.

But it wasn't was it. 1 penny was supposed to be worth half a new penny. In fact if you took four old pennies to the shop you would get the value of 2new pence. But when it got to a shilling it all went pear shaped. A shilling - 12 old pence was worth 5 new pence! Where has the two gone? By the time you got up to a quid, you two pennies had dropped in value from 1 new pence to 0.83 pence.

Either way, you lost 17% of the value.

Within two weeks of Decimal Day (15th February 1971), the penny (1d) and threepenny (3d) coins had left circulation and even sixpences were becoming rare.

Decimalisation

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