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British coinage : ShillingDecimal coinage was adopted as the official currency of the United Kingdom (Sterling) on February 15, 1971.
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£1 = 20 shillings.
1 shilling = 12 pence.
Thus:
£1 = 240 pence (though it was rarely expressed in this way)
and a penny was further subdivided at various times, though these divisions vanished as inflation made them irrelevant:
1 penny = 2 halfpennies and (earlier) 4 farthings.
As the symbol, £, for the pound is derived from the Latin pound, the libra, so the old abbreviation for the penny, d, was derived from the Roman denarius, and the abbreviation for the shilling, s, from the Roman solidus. The shilling was also denoted by the slash symbol, also called a solidus for this reason. The English penny was derived from a small silver coin minted by Charlemagne which was in general circulation in Europe during the middle ages. The weight of this coin was originally1/240th of a troy pound, a weight known as a pennyweight[?] - around 1.555grams.
From the time of Charlemagne until the 12th century, the silver currency of England was made from the highest purity silver available. Unfortunately there were drawbacks to minting currency of Fine Silver[?], notably was the level of wear it suffered, and the ease withe coins could be "clipped", or trimmed by those dealing in the currency. In the 12th century a new standard for English coinage was established by Henry II, the Sterling Silver[?] standard of metal -- 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper used in coinage. This was a harder and longer wearing alloy , yet was still a rather high grade of silver. This went some way to discouraging the pactice of "clipping", though this practice was further discouraged and largely elimiinated with the introduction of the milled edge we see on coins today.
The standard way of writing shillings and pence is
Some pre-decimalisation coins became commonly known by slang terms. Perhaps the most well known being 'bob[?]' for a shilling, and 'quid' for a pound. Quid remains as popular slang for one or more pounds to this day in Britain.
Note: * = denomination issued for use in the colonies, usually in Ceylon, Malta, or the West Indies, but normally counted as part of the British coinage.
Note that the medieval florin, half florin, and quarter florin were gold coins intended to circulate in Europe as well as in England and were valued as much more than the Victorian and later florin and double florin. The medieval florins were withdrawn within a year because they contained insufficient gold for their face value and thus were unacceptable to merchants.
All British coins produced since 1662 have been milled, i.e. produced by machine; the first milled coins were produced during the reign of Elizabeth I and periodically during the reigns of James I and Charles I, but there was opposition to mechanisation from the moneyers who ensured that most coins continued to be produced by hammering.
In medieval times, the penny was a sterling silver coin. English silver pennies are a collectible, and are now quite rare.
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