British readers: Corrections, additions, and color commentary are welcome!
Prior to decimalization, prestige items (or prestige-wannabe items!) were often priced in guineas rather than pounds. These included professional services, auctions, land, and livestock. I don't know whether guineas were ever used to price any cycling-related items; if so, it's useful to know what a guinea was:
1 pound (£1) = 20 shillings (20s) = 240 pence (240d)
1 guinea (1g or 1gn) = 1 pound, 1 shilling (£1 1s) = 21 shillings (21s) = 252 pence (252d)
In short, the guinea incorporates a 5% "markup" from the pound. (By
the way, the plural abbreviation for guineas is gs or gns, as in 2gs
or 2gns.)
>From what I've read, a small number of items (such as horse-racing
purses) continue to be priced in guineas, which are now equivalent to
£1.05. I can't find any other examples, so British readers will have
to let the rest of us know.
Note: From late 1967 until it was allowed to float in the early 70s, the British pound was pegged at US$2.40. Since there were 240 pence in a pound, a British penny was formally worth the same as an American penny. This makes off-the-cuff price assessments for that period a little easier: just convert the £sd price to pence, add a decimal point, and you have the dollars-and-cents equivalent.
For lots more information and fun trivia, see:
£sd - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/
Pound sterling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/
NationMaster - Encyclopedia: British coinage
http://www.nationmaster.com/
British Money - British Culture, Customs and Traditions
http://www.learnenglish.de/
English weights and measures: Money
http://home.clara.net/
Copywriting: That will be 25 guineas
http://copywriting.typepad.co.uk/
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Yanks, and happy Thursday to everyone else.
Peter Craig Martin Seattle, Washington, USA
On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 10:35, Mitch Harris <mitch.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/
> To save British listers the un-necessary flash back, here's an aswer:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/
>
> " 1/6d as 1 shilling and sixpence (often pronounced "one and six")"
>
> "In the United Kingdom, a shilling was a coin used from the reign of
> Henry VII[citation needed] until decimalisation in 1971. Before
> decimalisation, there were twenty shillings to the pound and twelve
> pence to the shilling, and thus 240 pence to the pound."
>
> 20s per pound would sugget that a shilling was roughly worth 5 pence
> today, but that won't seem right when you compare what a shilling used
> to buy to what 5 pence buys today. That's partly because the pound
> fell a lot in value from the late70s/early 80s on. Before that a
> pound was worth about two and a half bucks and so a shilling was more
> like a quarter in value. And back then in the US a quarter would
> still buy you something.
>
> Mitch Harris
> Little Rock Canyon, Utah, USA
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 11:13 AM, Dmitry Yaitskov <dima@rogers.com> wrote
:
> > Hi,
> >
> > In a British catalog from 1950-ies I see prices such as "16/-" or
> > "13/6" or "17/11". Could some kind soul explain to me what do those
> > numbers mean? Thanks.
> >
> > --
> > Cheers,
> > Dmitry Yaitskov,
> > Toronto, Canada.