Value of historic British coins in pre-decimal and decimal pence

Since the unification of England in medieval times, there has been some form of universally accepted, coined currency in circulation in Britain. Throughout history, there have been many variations of these coins in circulation, with more consistency and regulation implemented in recent centuries. Prior to 1971, British currency was split into three primary denominations, these were pence ("d"; from the Roman "denarius"), shillings (s) and pounds (£), with twelve pence equal to one shilling, and twenty shillings to one pound. Although pence and pounds were usually represented by their symbols, it was rare for shillings to be shown as "s", instead, one shilling would be written as "1/-". Farthings and other values worth less than one pence would also be written in as a fraction. Therefore, for example, four pounds, three shillings and two and a half pence would be written as; "£4 / 3 / 2½".

Multiples and colloquialisms

Along with the fundamental coins shown in the graph, there were many variations and multiples of each coin. For example, the farthing (which etymologically means "fourth of a penny") had four variations; the quarter farthing, third farthing, half farthing and farthing. This means that there were some coins in circulation worth as little as one quarter of one quarter (one 16th) of a penny. The largest coin distributed by the Bank of England is the five pound coin (which is still legal tender, but traditionally is a collectors items and is rarely seen in circulation). Many of these traditional coins were also known by their colloquial names, such as the "ha'penny" (half penny), "Bob" (shilling) and "Joey" (groat).

Decimal Day 1971

On February 15. 1971, both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland decimalized their respective currencies. For the UK, this meant that pounds retained their pre-decimal value, however they were now worth 100 pence, instead of 240 pence; which means that the penny was revalued from 1d to 2.4d, now shown as 1p. The production of shillings also stopped, however they remained in circulation until 1990 with a value of five pence. On Decimal Day in the UK, one pound notes were introduced and they remained in circulation until 1988, although the introduction of the one pound coin in 1983 had already rendered them unnecessary. Today, there are nine coins in common circulation in the United Kingdom, these are; 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2.