| Author |
Message |
Mike Stevens
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:47 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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John Hall wrote:
| Quote: | In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only existed
in that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a "silver"
thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
|
That's true, although I thought the polygonal coin existed for more than a
couple of decades.
There's an interesting local survival of the name. At Limehouse Basin (in
London, where the Regent's Canal meets the Thames), the lock-keeper's office
is in a polygonal building frequently referred to by boaters as "the
thruppenny bit". It's a particularly interestinge usag, as the building
post-dates the introduction of decimal currency and the abolition of the
relevant coin.
--
Mike Stevens
narrowboat Felis Catus II
web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
Old grammarians never die - they simple parse away
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Phil C.
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:33 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:31:11 +0000, John Hall
<nospam_nov03@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only existed in
that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a "silver"
thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
|
Wasn't it the shilling that was similar to the 5p coin? I recall the
old silver thruppeny bits being a bit smaller and thinner(?) but I
only ever saw one or two well-worn specimens. They must have
disappeared from circulation pretty quickly, perhaps because, like
many old silver coins, there actually was a silver content and it was
worth more than the face value. Never wishing to waste energy on
excess vowels, we called the coin a "throopny" bit, BTW, (with the
vowel sound of "put"). Some called it "threpny" or "thrupny" but they
sounded quaint.
We had a fad at school of finding silver coins old enough to contain
silver (1920s?) and taking them to a dealer - but we got bored with it
after about a week.
--
Phil C. |
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John Briggs
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 7:12 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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Mike Stevens wrote:
| Quote: | John Hall wrote:
In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only existed
in that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a "silver"
thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
That's true, although I thought the polygonal coin existed for more
than a couple of decades.
|
It depends. It was minted from 1937 to 1967.
--
John Briggs
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John Briggs
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 7:15 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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Phil C. wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:31:11 +0000, John Hall
nospam_nov03@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only
existed in that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a
"silver" thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
Wasn't it the shilling that was similar to the 5p coin?
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Identical - but that was the old (large) 5p, not the current small one.
--
John Briggs |
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einde. ocallaghan
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 7:59 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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Phil C. wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:31:11 +0000, John Hall
nospam_nov03@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only existed in
that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a "silver"
thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
Wasn't it the shilling that was similar to the 5p coin?
|
The original 5p coin was the size of a shilling, but since then the size
of the silver coins has been reduced. The present 5p is about the same
size as the old silver threepenny bit. We had silver threepenny bists in
Ireland down to the introduction of the decimal currency. Both irish and
British coins were in circulation down to the separation of teh two
currencies (sometime in teh 1980s IIRC - and even then you would find
british coins in your change in ireland because the coins were the same
size. (In Ireland we referred to the coin as thrupence or a thruppeny
bit.) There was also tuppence or tuppeny bit. I think this was used in
ireland to refer to the 2p coin down to the introduction of the euro. he
also had the ha'penny -plural "ha'pennies" (a two-syllable word with the
"e" silent where teh first syllable was pronounced "hay").
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan |
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Frank Erskine
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:07 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:33:33 +0000, Phil C.
<philstoxicwaste@fsmail.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
Wasn't it the shilling that was similar to the 5p coin? I recall the
old silver thruppeny bits being a bit smaller and thinner(?) but I
only ever saw one or two well-worn specimens. They must have
disappeared from circulation pretty quickly, perhaps because, like
many old silver coins, there actually was a silver content and it was
worth more than the face value. Never wishing to waste energy on
excess vowels, we called the coin a "throopny" bit, BTW, (with the
vowel sound of "put"). Some called it "threpny" or "thrupny" but they
sounded quaint.
|
In the North East it was quite common to call it "threpence", or a
"threpny bit".
--
Frank Erskine
OETKBC, MJBC |
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Don Petter
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 11:13 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 13:59:57 +0100, "einde. ocallaghan" <"einde.
ocallaghan"@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
[snip]
| Quote: | The original 5p coin was the size of a shilling, but since then the size
of the silver coins has been reduced. The present 5p is about the same
size as the old silver threepenny bit.
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[snip]
A bit bigger - 5p 18mm, 3d 16mm
Don. |
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John Hall
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:45 am
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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In article <mubho01a7bbh93fno6jd800ccm6p9fqr7b@4ax.com>,
Phil C. <philstoxicwaste@fsmail.net> writes:
| Quote: | On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:31:11 +0000, John Hall
nospam_nov03@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only existed in
that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a "silver"
thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
Wasn't it the shilling that was similar to the 5p coin?
|
As I remember it, the shilling was closer in size to the current 10p
coin. Of course, up until a decade or so ago, the 5p coin was identical
in size to the shilling, being a direct replacement for it (and the old
shillings remained in circulation). Then it was replaced by the current,
much smaller, coin. A year or two later, the original 10p coin,
identical in size to the old two shilling piece (which had also remained
in circulation), was replaced by a new design, thus removing the last
link to our traditional coinage.
| Quote: | I recall the
old silver thruppeny bits being a bit smaller and thinner(?)
|
No pun intended, presumably? :)
They can only have been very slightly smaller than the current 5p, given
how tiny that coin is.
| Quote: | but I
only ever saw one or two well-worn specimens.
|
Yes, they were mainly kept for putting in Christmas puddings as I
recall.
| Quote: | They must have
disappeared from circulation pretty quickly,
|
By the late 1950s, which is about as far back as I can reliably
remember, there seemed to be very few - if any - in general circulation.
| Quote: | perhaps because, like
many old silver coins, there actually was a silver content and it was
worth more than the face value. Never wishing to waste energy on
excess vowels, we called the coin a "throopny" bit, BTW, (with the
vowel sound of "put"). Some called it "threpny" or "thrupny" but they
sounded quaint.
|
I think we said "thrupny" in my neck of the woods.
| Quote: |
We had a fad at school of finding silver coins old enough to contain
silver (1920s?) and taking them to a dealer - but we got bored with it
after about a week.
|
That was something that I occasionally thought of doing but could never
be bothered.
--
John Hall
"Three o'clock is always too late or too early
for anything you want to do."
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) |
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Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:46 am
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Wednesday, in article <2urk94F267ltaU1@uni-berlin.de>
michael.stevens@which.net "Mike Stevens" wrote:
| Quote: | John Hall wrote:
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only existed
in that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a "silver"
thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
That's true, although I thought the polygonal coin existed for more than a
couple of decades.
|
IIRC, the first brass duodecagonal thrupney'bit was minted in 1937. It
continued in service until 1971.
Its predecessor was the "silver joey"; when I wurra lad, these had been
preserved by my grandmother to put in the Christmas puddings.
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk
"I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi-
national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet
software and decent hardware support." |
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John Briggs
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:30 am
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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John Hall wrote:
| Quote: | In article <mubho01a7bbh93fno6jd800ccm6p9fqr7b@4ax.com>,
Phil C. <philstoxicwaste@fsmail.net> writes:
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:31:11 +0000, John Hall
nospam_nov03@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
In article <UrltmYti19hBFwHJ@molly.mockford>,
Molly Mockford <nospamnobody@mollymockford.me.uk> writes:
http://www.coinage-sales.co.uk/grafix/genericoins/threepenny100.png
has a picture of a pre-1971 thruppenny bit.
That was a favourite coin of mine too. I believe that it only
existed in that form for a couple of decades, being preceded by a
"silver" thruppenny bit similar in size to the current 5p coin.
Wasn't it the shilling that was similar to the 5p coin?
As I remember it, the shilling was closer in size to the current 10p
coin. Of course, up until a decade or so ago, the 5p coin was
identical in size to the shilling, being a direct replacement for it
(and the old shillings remained in circulation). Then it was replaced
by the current, much smaller, coin. A year or two later, the original
10p coin, identical in size to the old two shilling piece (which had
also remained in circulation), was replaced by a new design, thus
removing the last link to our traditional coinage.
|
Except that the florin wasn't a traditional coin (that was the half-crown).
The florin was introduced (in 1848, IIRC) as part of an intended
decimalisation: there was a proposal to introduce coins for one-tenth and
one-hundredth of a pound. Thanks to opposition, only the one-tenth coin was
introduced - and given a suitably 'antique' name. The decimalisation
scheme, when it eventually arrived, was the one proposed in the first place!
--
John Briggs |
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John Hall
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:47 am
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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In article <Hdbid.126$pw2.120@newsfe3-win.ntli.net>,
John Briggs <john.briggs4@ntlworld.com> writes:
| Quote: | Except that the florin wasn't a traditional coin (that was the half-crown).
The florin was introduced (in 1848, IIRC) as part of an intended
decimalisation: there was a proposal to introduce coins for one-tenth and
one-hundredth of a pound. Thanks to opposition, only the one-tenth coin was
introduced - and given a suitably 'antique' name. The decimalisation
scheme, when it eventually arrived, was the one proposed in the first place!
|
Yes, I recall once reading about this somewhere. However 1848 is
traditional enough for me. 
--
John Hall
"Three o'clock is always too late or too early
for anything you want to do."
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) |
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Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 10:06 am
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Wednesday, in article
<Hdbid.126$pw2.120@newsfe3-win.ntli.net>
john.briggs4@ntlworld.com "John Briggs" wrote:
| Quote: | Except that the florin wasn't a traditional coin (that was the half-crown).
The florin was introduced (in 1848, IIRC) as part of an intended
decimalisation: there was a proposal to introduce coins for one-tenth and
one-hundredth of a pound. Thanks to opposition, only the one-tenth coin was
introduced - and given a suitably 'antique' name. The decimalisation
scheme, when it eventually arrived, was the one proposed in the first place!
|
Were any coins minted that actually had the words "One Florin" on them?
I'm sure all the ones I've seen (some of which were Victorian) had the
wording "Two Shillings". So I'd always understood "florin" to be a
nickname.
AIUI, when this coin was first introduced, the wording on it read "One-
Tenth of a Pound" (in the same way that Channel Islands' pennies were
"One-Twelfth of a Shilling").
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk
"I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi-
national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet
software and decent hardware support." |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:27 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
| Quote: | michael.stevens@which.net "Mike Stevens" wrote:
IIRC, the first brass duodecagonal thrupney'bit was minted in 1937. It
continued in service until 1971.
Its predecessor was the "silver joey"; when I wurra lad, these had been
preserved by my grandmother to put in the Christmas puddings.
|
The word "joey" properly refers to a 4d coin which circulated in the 19th
century, and was named after a politician who campaigned for it (Joseph
Hume). It was only after the 4d coin disappeard from circulation that the
term came to be applied to the silver 3d.
Matthew Huntbach |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:44 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, John Briggs wrote:
| Quote: | John Hall wrote:
As I remember it, the shilling was closer in size to the current 10p
coin. Of course, up until a decade or so ago, the 5p coin was
identical in size to the shilling, being a direct replacement for it
(and the old shillings remained in circulation). Then it was replaced
by the current, much smaller, coin. A year or two later, the original
10p coin, identical in size to the old two shilling piece (which had
also remained in circulation), was replaced by a new design, thus
removing the last link to our traditional coinage.
|
Until the old 5p coin was withdrawn, shillings dating back to 1816 (when
new sized silver coins were last introduced) were still legal tender.
| Quote: | Except that the florin wasn't a traditional coin (that was the half-crown).
The florin was introduced (in 1848, IIRC) as part of an intended
decimalisation: there was a proposal to introduce coins for one-tenth and
one-hundredth of a pound. Thanks to opposition, only the one-tenth coin was
introduced - and given a suitably 'antique' name. The decimalisation
scheme, when it eventually arrived, was the one proposed in the first place!
|
Yes, it was 1848, so until the old 10p coins were withdrawn, coins dating
back to 1848 were still legal tender (I recall the withdrawal being rather
more than a year or two after the withdrawal of the old 5p, it was three
or four - time had to be given for the old 5p coins to disappear since the
new 10p coins were so similar in size).
There was also opposition to the florin because the first version of
the coin omitted the words "Dei Gratia" and hence came to be called the
"Godless florin". It's sometimes said that "florin" was the "nickname"
for the two bob bit, but that is false. It was the formal name for the
coin which still appeared on it as late as the 1920s. I don't think in
practice anyone actually called it that.
In those days one-hundredth of a pound was a substantial amount of money
(even in 1971 it was so much that we had the decimal halfpenny). The
original scheme was that the florin would be the main unit of currency
divided into a hundred itself. One hundredth of a florin was very nearly
a quarter of a farthing. Quarter farthing coins were minted, although it
was one of those denomination only intended for the colonies.
Matthew Huntbach |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:04 pm
Post subject: Re: "pences" |
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Matthew Huntbach typed thus:
| Quote: | There was also opposition to the florin because the first version of
the coin omitted the words "Dei Gratia" and hence came to be called the
"Godless florin". It's sometimes said that "florin" was the "nickname"
for the two bob bit, but that is false. It was the formal name for the
coin which still appeared on it as late as the 1920s. I don't think in
practice anyone actually called it that.
|
Yep, we did, up to the 70s.
--
David
=====
replace the first component of address
with the definite article. |
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