Horrible Histories Tudor Currency

[@weirds0up]

The book of Good Omens has the full break down of pre-decimal currency in Britain and makes the joke about how Britain resisted decimalisation because it was too complex

[@Liandra24]

I got the book recently and it was amusing to read how complicated it was, and then to see how little money it really was, I laughed at how pay was poorly handled.

[@Julia-lk8jn]

That might have been due to either Sir Terry or Neil Gaiman. Pratchett definitely used it again in "Making Money", though that time with a more realistic turn to it: how many pennies does it cost to make pennies?

[@timfortune9]

"The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated." - "Good Omens"

[@paualamar]

*coughs in metric while eyeballing the US*

[@matthewshell5388]

We don't think it's too complicated. We fully realize we are being stubborn.

[@Tairneanach]

@@matthewshell5388 Oh, I dunno. I've seen people argue that the metric system makes no sense to them while the imperial system is perfectly logical.

[@x66Hawk66x]

We are still resisting in many areas, the UK hasn't fully adopted the metric system either. we still use miles and yards for the roads, and we still use pints for some fluids such as milk. We also Use MPG Imperial gallon to work out our fuel economy despite using the metric system and filling up in litres.

[@spacecaptain9188]

@@paualamar US has officially used the metric system since 1866. Why do you care if we also use several other measurement systems?

[@TheIVYRAVE]

It's funny seeing my birthplace on TV....

[@spacecaptain9188]

They made it sound much more complicated that it was. They had odd names for everything, but it was all based on multiples of 3 or 4 pennies. Even the fractions of a penny are 1/4 and 2/4 of a penny. This is not rocket science.

[@tzoninghard2425]

Its because they would quarter their money so half a pound would literally half a coin.

[@Lwis2]

Because Henry VIII wasn't actually supposed to be king. I don't actuallyknow the answer but i'm still right

[@JoeBleasdaleReal]

Right, I think I’ve got this: Farthing = 0.25 Pennies Half-Penny = 0.5 Pennies Penny Half-Groat = 2 Pennies Groat = 4 Pennies Sixpence = 6 Pennies / 3 Half-Groats Shilling = 12 Pennies Half-Crown / Quarter-Angel = 30 Pennies / 2 Shillings + Sixpence Crown / Half-Angel = 60 Pennies / 5 Shillings Angel / Half-Pound = 120 Pennies / 10 Shillings Pound = 240 Pennies / 20 Shillings Sovereign = 360 Pennies / 30 Shillings Thank goodness we eventually went decimal!

[@rowanaboat4523]

Well done sir.

[@hannamills1985]

Wow

[@The_Caledonian]

no, the french regressed everyone from base 12 to base 10. The only reason base 10 is useful today is simply because it has been universally standardised unlike the imperial where the dodecimal system was inconsistent. Just look throughout history and even the ancients used base 12 simply because it was effective at trading and dividing.

[@joewilson3575]

@@The_Caledonian I'd 'azard that they progressed everyone from base 12 to base 10. 'Specially considering that it wasn't even a base 12 system!

[@The_Caledonian]

@@joewilson3575 Your statement is invalid. "Progressing" from 12 to 10 does not make sense.

[@abc68130]

This is what imperial measurements feel like to me as a European

[@star.interlude]

Yes. Just yes. I agree so much😂

[@Quinntus79]

I’m American and I agree. The metric system makes sense.

[@saadaleem7260]

I actually learnt how this works.

[@michaelfawcett9935]

Yes this is why as a Canadian I am grateful that we use metric.

[@KoolSpool]

I love the metric system, it’s just why is there nothing between a meter and a centimeter? That is such a big difference!

[@achanwahn]

Now I understand what the currency for Harry Potter was based on

[@samueleveleigh2767]

yea, JK like many people writing stories about magic essentially stoped development at the middle ages and have them refuse to advance their own technology

[@achanwahn]

@@samueleveleigh2767 As they are British writers, it's actually a humorous jab at the olde english currency. It's just a joke by the author, either laugh at the in-joke or move on, killjoy.

[@nathangamble125]

@@samueleveleigh2767 However it is contextually appropriate in Harry Potter, due to the elitist anti-muggle attitudes held by the majority of powerful wizards and the Ministry of Magic. JK Rowling made a lot of mistakes (mostly relating to her naive tokenism with Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Dumbledore, and Hermione) but the ignorant attitude of wizarding society towards muggles is one of the things that she presented consistently.

[@Inkyminkyzizwoz]

That's even worse, because it doesn't even use numbers that can be divided up!

[@Nilo1310]

@@nathangamble125 How is Lavender token

[@tokyoqueen6738]

Face it, so many of us would have FAILED at trying to figure out Tudor currency.

[@AuChoco]

TokyoQueen or you can just ask for what is the least valuable coin and work your way up the values

[@MrJoeyWheeler]

No you wouldn't. You just have to learn it, like you do for modern decimal currency. It's hardly any different.

[@t.estable3856]

@@MrJoeyWheeler It's quite different, you wouldn't compare counting by two's to memorizing prime numbers would you? One is much harder than the other.

[@joshblair5021]

Damian Freeman it's extremely different.

[@Tairneanach]

@@MrJoeyWheeler Decimal currency usually comes in two denominations, one being a hundred of the other. How can you even compare that to the tudor system?

[@395203502]

Is no one going to mention the fact that Henry VIII is teaching his new subjects about money? No one?

[@potatoegirl31]

could be a bastard cousin...

[@goodnight-moon564]

Undetermined True

[@owenpalmer5281]

Ad Lockhorst no it’s because the same actor played Henry VIII dressed in almost the exact same way

[@MyInventiveUserName]

I am totally impressed with Ben for learning all that.

[@suem6004]

Well done to Ben to get through this take without messing up. I could not have kept it straight.

[@pinkroseperson256]

I thought that was Henry VIII in the thumbnail, lol! Ben shouldn’t try to play more than one bearded Tudor guy

[@sinenomine8101]

I thought that too! But it makes sense, since everyone tried to look like the current monarch in high fashion.

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Ikr. It was really irritating in Horrible Histories the same actor that played Cesare Borgia in the Addams family theme parody also played the guy who visited Rodrigo Borgia the Pope in the Godfather parody. Like they used the same actor for Rodrigo's son, as the person who visits Rodrigo. Not only was the actor the same, but the accent he used and the costume too! It's annoying enough this guy looks the same as Henry VIII during the same era but at he isn't wearing the same costume and visiting what should have been his father!

[@ellaanimates]

How tf did Ben Willbond remember all this, I could never 😂✨

[@Ekvitarius]

He kept saying "which is equal to" to make it sound more complicated than it really is

[@DraculaCronqvist]

An absolute nightmare. I'll have my decimal monetary system, thank you very much. I'd rather just trade goods for goods, rather than learn that abyssmal Tudor Currency value system.

[@Blubatsze]

My dad said if you lived in that century, you would understand. me: Or the country but we find it harder because we're from the 21st century.

[@gazman1238]

It's really not that hard. start with the pound, representative of one poundweight of sterling silver. Divide it by a score and you have a shilling. Divide that by a dozen and you have a penny. Everything else is simple fractions of those three main denominations. 1 Penny dividede in: 1/2 - ha'penny (half pennies) 1/4 - farthing (fourth-ings) 1 shilling divides into 1/2 - sixpence 1/4 - thrippence (three pence) 1/3 - groat (four pence) 1/6 - tuppance/half groat (two pence) 1/12 penny (copper) 1 pound divides into: 1 - gold sovereign 1/2 - angel(10 shillings) 1/4 - Crown (5 shillings) 1/8 - half-crown (2 shillings sixpence) 1/10 - florin (2 shillings) 1/20 - shilling (bob) More than a pound was: 1 1/20 - Guinea Just a different way of thinking about fractions.

[@ancermet6734]

I'm so dumb

[@ah5721]

whats a score? is it like 1/4 or 1/2?

[@orbemsolis]

@@ah5721 a score is 20.

[@jusufagung]

@@orbemsolis How is a score a twenty?

[@orbemsolis]

@@jusufagung It's an antiquated term, like how a dozen is 12. Google says it's because when one was counting their cattle herd, they would put a score on a stick for every 20 they counted.

[@enrkchin]

Poor Ben, imagine having to rehearse those lines. :)

[@thetrashmaster1352]

"Out goes the pounds, the shillings and the pence. Income the dollars. Income the cents. Keep that in mind when the money starts to switch, on the 14th of February 1966." - The only reason why Australia uses dollars and not pounds is because a 1965 pound would be worth twice as much as a 1966 pound. 2p and 3p from 1965 would also both be worth 2p in 1966. so if you bought something that's 3p in 1966 but you bought it with three 1p coins from 1965 you'd be 1p short, however, if you use one more 1p coin from 1965 you would have paid 4p and you get 1p change. Or if you bought something that's 3p with two 1966 1p coins but one p1 coins from 1966 you'd be 0.33 pence short. In short, thank goodness we chose to use the dollar.

[@zuhn421]

These guys are such good actors. :)

[@istoppedcaring6209]

you guys are aware that this was also the case for practically all of europe, that is the whole reason why money changers existed it is also how national banks came to be, because the bank of amsterdam a proto national bank was the first bank to issue bank notes to put against money put in the bank, this meant that even if a currency was devaluated the vallue at the bank would remain the same,

[@doolan0543]

I wish we kept it like this, this would confuse the hell out of the tourists,

[@zacharybenson1818]

you lost me at six pence

[@tokyoqueen6738]

+Zachary Benson He lost me when he started naming the currency. I was gone the second he got to that part.

[@lukassnakeman]

i think they just wanted more coins to put people on "you get a coin with your face on it, you get a coin with your face on it, you get a coin with your face on it, everyone gets a coin with their face on it!"

[@Princess101855]

How the heck did people understand the currancy. I still can't get my head round it and I've watch this 5 times!

[@Inkyminkyzizwoz]

*currency

[@Alphoric]

It was like this in 1970 so people in their 60s and older would still know how it works with ease but basically instead of pennies and pounds with 100p being a pound it was 240p for every pound

[@qwadratix]

I was born long before decimalization. We still used this system. In fact, the guy missed one: The threepenny 'bit'. There were silver ones still around but the more usual type was a brass color. (I still have a few). The angel and groat had gone though everything else was as he laid it out here. We were brought up with it and it didn't seem strange. In fact a lot of people struggled with the changeover to decimals.

[@SpeakerofTruth207]

THANK YOU for putting this on here I needed it for a project lol

[@Septimus_ii]

It's only a bit complicated - 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound. The confusion is because every coin has a nickname

[@shilpathomas838]

OMG! I couldn't understand a word he said!!!

[@IronBridge1781]

Whatever they pay that guy. It ain't enough.

[@howdyhamster]

Sounds just as easy as Imperial distance measurements: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, 10 chains in a furlong, 8 furlongs in a mile. This is why the definition of a mile as 5280 feet seems like such a strange number, because chains and furlongs aren't commonly used anymore.

[@goktimusprime]

lol, pre-metric weights are measurements are about as nonsensical as this too. Thank goodness it's extinct. *hugs metre stick*

[@knightowl3577]

The UK is officially metric in weights and measures but in practice, it's not many people still use feet and inches and weigh things in pounds and ounces when following a recipe. Speeds on the road are in MPH and people ask how many miles to the gallon does your car do. Still pretty mixed up.

[@ninjacell2999]

@@knightowl3577 true but no one under 30 weighs things in pounds and ounces

[@Tairneanach]

@Fred Smith Sure, the definition of a metre may be just as arbitrary, but everything else about the metric system is neat, tidy and a lot easier. In the imperial system you have twelve inches to the foot, three feet to the yard and 1760 yards to the mile, iirc. In the metric system you have 1000 millimetres to the metre and 1000 metres to the kilometre, and to convert from any scale to any other scale you simple add or subtract the requisite number of zeroes instead of having to divide or multiply by twelve, three or 1760, for example. It's also more flexible. How would you express a size that is usually measured in nanometres (one billionth of a metre, in case you didn't know) in the imperial system without using some form of metric system, i.e. a decimal point and a lot of zeroes? Or what about astronomical distances? Take the distance to Proxima Centauri, for example, the closest star to our sun. In the metric system it's, very roughly, 4*10^16 m (or 40 petametres). Of course you can use the same system for miles, but that's basically half a switch to the metric system. If you don't want to use the metric system at all, you end up with, and I hope I've got all of this right, roughly 25 000 000 000 000 miles. Heck, Americans even regularly use and understand the metric system when they talk about how much RAM they have or how much data their phone can store. The entire world is used to talking about MB and GB, and people who need to know these things know that 1 GB = 1000 MB.

[@Tairneanach]

​@Fred Smith Congratulations, you've tried to insult me right off the bat and not grasped my point in one fell swoop. Yes, any distance can be measured in any system, but the metric system is the most convenient system we have. You're proving that point with the thou, by the way, as that's a base 10 way of expressing units smaller than an inch. And if anyone using the imperial system ever needs to express anything smaller than a thou, they probably use decimals, don't they? As for 1/3, no system is perfect. There is a workaround, of course, but first I would like to point out that 1/3 of a unit only ever works in the specific cases you've laid out. It fails when measuring anything larger or smaller than that and when measuring volumes, too. Now, the workaround. Did you really think that the system used by the scientific community didn't account for that? Sadly it's not able to be displayed in KZbin comments, but repeating fractions of any kind can be written with an overscore or vinculum: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinculum_(symbol) See, my point is that any workaround the imperial system has to overcome its shortcomings is inevitably going to be base 10, i.e. the metric system. And where the metric system has its shortcomings, it doesn't borrow from the imperial system.

[@Tairneanach]

@Fred Smith As I said, the KZbin comment section does not support the symbol used for repeating decimals. I gave you a link where you could take a look at it. Despite your story, the base 10 system is the best we have. You are free to point to a different system that works better. Base 12 is all fine and dandy when you have to divide, but with our numerical system it's just not as easily written down as base 10 is. I'll grant you it works better for angles, but that's because there you have to be able to divide into lots of different things and you don't usually go higher than 360 (and if you do, there's rarely an opportunity to go crazy high like you would do with units of distance, mass or money). And sure, any system can work. My point is that the metric system works better than any other, and certainly a hell of a lot better than the imperial system. You're demonstrating this by bringing up edge cases where something else works better, and you have to appeal to a different system each time. The metric system is pretty much universal. Don't you think there's a reason that you have to use the metric system in your work? Cause it's no coincidence that "one pretty much has to these days".

[@crabsy6452]

Now im glad we only have pounds and pence

[@jashbrown8079]

Yup, it really makes me curious now, how the hell did they fix this money system in the past.

[@zyrelcoronado9825]

If I time travel to that era I'm fucked as hell

[@danielcooper1294]

1/4 penny= farthing, 1/2 penny= half penny, 1 penny= penny, 2 penny= half groat, 4 penny= groat, 6 penny= sixpence, 12 penny= shilling, 30 penny= half crown, 60 penny= crown, 120 penny= angel, 240 penny= pound, 360 penny= Sovereign. Yes, I do have too much time on my hands.

[@kathrynanderson9474]

I remember this currency until 1971!

[@el1_xir27]

im a future historian and i dont even understand the tudor money system

[@DaHuntsman1]

*hearing him talk about all the different kinds of money* me: fuck this! *gets back on the boat*

[@mcf7022]

God i love Jim Howick his french acsent is so funny XP

[@trikitrikitriki]

This is where J.K. Rowling got her inspiration for her ridiculous money system

[@Inkyminkyzizwoz]

Which is even more ridiculous as it uses prime numbers - at least this used numbers that can be divided!

[@1namster]

"Urghhh...I....Urghhhh?" LOL

[@heatherbowman9450]

For some reason my throat is numb 0:57

[@AEI1031Productions]

If I'll become president I'll put this system in the United States!

[@mizzmazz90]

i'd rather be poor than figure out all that

[@brandonchan5387]

And then one day someone said "Hey you know, how about I give you these gold coins, and you give me a receipt telling me how much I've given you so I can get it back later?" And that's how we got paper money.

[@censorduck]

The evolution of paper money is an amazing thing.

[@mwisepart]

just put them all in a bag and have fun

[@jackwills543]

Its not a complicated system

[@jeyendeoso]

oh man, i heard that the english also use the so called imperial measurement system... its not decimal and it uses inches, foot yards, miles... its quite weird as well! *sarcasm*

[@kuroorchid2455]

Uh..? No? Americans use that.. we use the metric system?

[@Austenasia]

Not all of us. Especially now with Britain leaving the EU, a lot of people will likely go back to imperial.

[@MrJoeyWheeler]

Metric and Imperial both have their uses. I personally think Imperial is far superior for less specific things such as baking and I see no reason as to why we should change our views on speed to metric.

[@Inkyminkyzizwoz]

@@MrJoeyWheeler Why is it superior for baking?

[@karenzingano6595]

Damian Freeman it’s not that deep

[@HyperSpify]

1 sovereign = 360 pennies 1 pound = 240 pennies 1 angel = 120 pennies 1 crown = 60 pennies 1 shilling = 12 pennies 1 sixpence = 6 pennies 1 groat = 4 pennies 1 penny = 1 penny 1 farthing = 1/4 penny There you go.

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Convert into Farthings please, as it's the smallest unit

[@GenialHarryGrout]

240 pennies in a pound, simples, it is what I grew up with

[@CoinageBritannia]

Depends on what issue of sovereign, crown, half-crown you want xD The Early Tudor Sovereigns were Gold and around 15g, the later Victorian Sovereigns weighed a paltry 8g in comparison. The earliest Crowns and Half-Crowns were also issued in Gold but were superseded by Silver coins. The Later Silver Crown weighing between 28 and 32g, however it is dwarfed by the 1797 'Cartwheel' Tuppence of King George III which weighs 2 Ounces of Pure Copper. That was the heaviest coin Britain has ever issued.

[@USSResolute]

Just one more reason Americans should not let anyone from the UK mock us for not using the Metric System...

[@bornesone]

I think this is a video that mocks us for NOT using the metric system...

[@DemstarAus]

Meanwhile, in the future...

[@LiveLoudandLiveAlive]

I read an entire website on old British coins. Then I watched this. I'm still having a hard time.

[@censorduck]

Actually more easy than you think 12 penies in a Schilling, 20 Schillings in a pound. All the other coins are just multiples of those coins

[@CryosisOfficial]

It's really not that complicated, the video just purposefully makes it sound confusing; it uses a simple 1/20/240 Carolingian system as introduced by Charlemagne (something that was very popular in Europe at the time), split between the pound, shilling, and penny. All the other coins/their nicknames were merely supplementary. Unless you're REALLY bad at math, it's not hard to work with at all, I mean the illiterate peasant children of the time managed just fine with it. Money was also worth a lot more back then and your average peasant wasn't typically dealing in high numbers. 240 pennies to the pound 20 shillings to the pound 240 / 20 = 12, so 12 pennies to a shilling. A halfpenny, farthing (from Old English fourthing), twopence, threepence, sixpence are all pretty self explanatory and are just additional (or sub) values of a penny, similar to how we still have twopence, fivepence, tenpence, twentypence, and fiftypence coins nowadays. A shilling at 1/20 of a pound would be equivalent to a modern day 5p coin while a crown at 1/4 of a pound would be roughly equivalent to a 20p coin (there were a few post-decimalisation crowns minted at a value of 25 new pence). The other coins mentioned in this video such as groates, angels, and sovereigns are mostly rarer uses. "Half-groats" weren't a real thing, they were just called twopence/tuppence, with half-groat being a nickname some peopled used since it was worth half a groat; which later on after the Tudor period just became known as a fourpence for the most part. A sovereign was just a name for a particular type of bullion gold coin that was worth 1 pound (20 shillings, not 30), with a half-sovereign (10 shillings/120 pennies) being equivalent to a modern day 50p coin; it was introduced by King Henry and did not see regular circulation. The angel was also introduced during the Tudor period, copying the French angelot (something this French peasant should be familiar with), and had a fluctuating value

[@YeomanLocksly]

I hear that this is not to different from pre-1971 UK currency.

[@Inkyminkyzizwoz]

*too

[@Kai-xr6vs]

Like a lot of British things, the base of this system is actually French, introduced by Charlemagne and used until 1794, so the French guy wouldn't have much trouble understanding the currency as long as he could learn the new names.

[@silverninja1001]

Ummm I'm gonna regret this but "I like trains,".

[@pinkroseperson256]

(CHOO CHOO)

[@DarkLadyJade]

Ugh, this makes my head hurt. So unnecessarily complicated. >_

[@Desucrate]

I took one look and that and was like, Wow. Another spam thing about iPads and money.

[@Justice237]

It must have been a nightmare to learn the script for this!

[@kevinmartinez723]

Not that hard... Farthing = 1/4 penny Half penny = 1/2 penny Penny = 1 penny = 1 Pence Groat = 4 pennies = 4 Pence Shilling = 12 pennies = 1 Shillings Crown = 60 pennies = 5 Shillings Angel = 120 pennies = 10 Shillings Half pound = 120 pennies = 10 Shillings Pound = 240 pence = 20s = £1

[@kgrfirdjy]

That currency measurement system is even more confusing than the British Imperial Unit measurement system still notoriously used in the United States. Curse my nation's backwards measurements that go in base numbers 3,4, 8, 12, 16, & 5280!!!

[@andrielisilien]

I'm so glad America didn't keep the same currency

[@advocatingAvian]

The funniest part about this is most of the people back then were uneducated. I'm great at math and this makes no sense to me.

[@michaeldavis4651]

"i don't know what the problem is here." I'll tell you what the problem is you've got to learn it from the cradle to properly understand such a monetary syatem. It's like the English Language! My brain hurts worse now than it does in Calculus class.

[@seneca65r]

TUDOR ! I'm not old and I grew up using this LSD money. and it really was Money the pound sterling was actually a pound of sterling silver, Shilling made of silver , penny ( d ) made of real copper. sovereign those are made of Gold.

[@HipposHateWater]

For any of you UK guys, which are better as a sock weight for beating people with: sovereigns, pounds, crowns, half-crowns, shillings, angels, farthings, groats, pennies, half-pennies, pence, or half-pence?

[@snowbarbieblue]

"Half a Pound" "A "Pand?"". Hahaha

[@TomFynn]

UK: "We resist decimalized currency." [Brexit happens] UK: "Take my money, pleeeaaasssee!"

[@ah5721]

I would be a horrible cashier back in the day . Thats crazy! glad I'm in America its pretty simple . We got : pennies 0.01c 100 =$1.00 a nickle .05c (5= a quarter ) a quarter .25c (4 = $1.00 2= .50c ) ) half a dollar .50c (not used often ) and dollar 1.00 . ( coins rarely used and collectibles) With pre-counted 4 quarters, two dimes, a nickle , and 4 pennies I can give back any variation of change needed and quickly

[@christinahvidberg6805]

It's ooookay easy when put like this: 1 Soverign 2 pounds 3 Angels 6 Crown 30 shillings 90 Groats 60 Sixpence 360 Pennies 1440 Farthing Did that make it any easier? xD

[@KathrynLiz1]

I grew up with LSD (no... not lysergic acid..... pounds, shillings and pence!)... quite easy once you get your head around it, and it has advantages that no 10-based system can have.... :-)

[@urmo345]

English currency system was influenced by Roman currency, and it was broadly similar: Aureus (gold) = 25 denarii. Denarius (silver) = 2 quinarii. Quinarius (silver) = 2 sestertii. Sestertius = 2 duopndii. Dupondius = 2 asses. As (copper) = 2 semiasses. Semis (copper) = 2 quadrantes. Money had value then, and many people never saw aureus with their own eyes: "For one as you can drink wine For two you can drink the best For four you can drink Falernian." - from the wall of Pompei

[@ocdguyhere3465]

I hate math

[@leonbanks5728]

OCD Guy here The word is Maths with an S on the end not Math.

[@Hope19012012]

thumbs if if you think that money exchanger guy who often plays william cecil looks like henry cavill (charles brandon) from the "tudor series" !!!!

[@Padwarner4452]

This must be what explaining IT stuff sounds like in the perspective of really old people

[@summer20105707]

Rather than decimals the old system seems as though it was based upon fractions. With a good foundation of math skills fractions aren't complicated either. It's just a different way of thinking.

[@blkgardner]

The math isn't that hard. It is mostly multiples of two, three, four, and five. The prime factors of the ratios are only 2, 3, and 5. It doesn't have any off-the-wall ratios like 437.5 grains to the avoirdupois ounce or 1,760 yards to the mile.

[@suicune162333]

me, my brother, my mum and my dad have watched it 16 times already and we still dont understand

[@lamlatynol.2252]

I think we should bring this system back, honestly. The only confusing thing here is that the coins are given about three different _slang_ terms, which makes it hard to wrap your head around which coins are which. However, I'd rather we have a more complex pre-decimal system that forces us to be more calculative than a stripped-down, simple decimal system that has no charm.

[@chantellepride6368]

Descimalised money didn't come into force until 1971!!

[@sallyyexley9627]

No idea why ppl had an issues with pounds and pence when decimal system first came out...when my mam worked in 70s she had to deal with pounds, shillings and pence, i can't get my head round it

[@louisu76]

I'd pay to watch this...err...a shilling...no , half a crown, or an angel? It's damn funny though!

[@samwiseshireling]

I think I would act like I had to idea what he meant just so he would talk to me some more.

[@LadyTaurus95]

I only comprehend the dollar and yen. until now the dollar was the most complicated...

[@ravenb3048]

Me when I describe the fictional currency system I came up with for the setting I made:

[@tams805]

It makes perfect sense, there were just too many denominations.

[@censorduck]

Well there aren't really denominations, it's just a different name for coins that represented multiples of either a penny or a shilling. If you keep in mind how many shillings or pennies your coins were worth, it's not so bad.

[@AAblade7]

As an American I’m trying to understand how decimal currency is as old as the constitution in the US, but we still do no like metric?

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Halfpenny is pronounced "hayp-nee".

[@TNCGamerFart]

Irish Currency is... 1cent 2cent 5cent 10cent 20cent 50cent 1euro 2euro

[@94SwedishGuy]

Wasn´t it more complicated than that, it couldn´t get any easier

[@s-a-r-a-h]

Americans trying to explain why we don't use the metric system

[@willmcdonald934]

Aussie Currency 5 cents 10 cents 20 cents 50 cents 1 dollar

[@CrusaderAmerica]

@kevinmartinez723 Real reason for the American revolution.....

[@FarberBob678]

They also had a threepence which had the value of 3 pennies or a quarter of a shilling

[@tombstonerforever9374]

4 farthings in a penny Two half-pennies in a penny 4 pennies in a groat 2 pennies in half a groat 12 pennies in a shilling 6 pennies is a sixpence 30 pennies in a half crown 120 pennies in an angel 60 pennies in half an angel which is a crown 10 shillings is half a pound or an angel 120 pennies in an angel 240 pennies in a pound 20 shillings is a pound 30 shillings is a sovereign