Posted by RichardG on September 04, 2003 at 09:37:40 from 81.136.27.213 user RichardG.
In Reply to: Re: Re Half Crowns posted by Brad Henry on September 04, 2003 at 06:06:49:
At the time AR was writing, the U.K. also had farthings - one-quarter of an old penny. I seem to recall they were abolished in about 1958.
Incidentally, the singular of the base unit is "penny", e.g. one penny, not one pence. While the plural for a coin of greater value was "pence", e.g. threepence, sixpence, the plural for a pile of one penny coins was "pennies".
Ah, the good old days of LSD !
(from Livre = £ = pound; S = shilling; Denarii = D = Penny)
Those "P" things we have now simply do not have the same historical resonance (nor anything like the real monetary value - the idea of paying nine shillings for my daily paper still seems quite shocking).