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ValeryOchkov24-Ruby IV
24-Ruby IV
January 12, 2015
Question

Old english units of money

  • January 12, 2015
  • 20 replies
  • 6263 views

I read in FORSYTE SAGA (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4397/4397-h/4397-h.htm)

"He was er—an owner of houses, my dear. His hair about your Uncle Swithin's colour; rather a square build. Tall? No—not very tall" (he had been five feet five, with a mottled face); "a fresh-coloured man."

I can calculate the growth of this man 5*ft+5*in=165 cm

But I cannot calculate this:

"Old Jolyon stepped out, and, in paying the cab fare, for the first time in his life gave the driver a sovereign in mistake for a shilling."

Can anybody send me a Mathcad-sheet with

shilling:=?

sovereign:=shilling

etc

20 replies

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Fred_Kohlhepp23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
January 12, 2015

According to what I can find, a "sovereign" is a coin equal to an english pound; there are 20 shillings in a pound.

A guinea was a pound and a shilling

http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/moneyold.htm

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RichardJ19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
January 12, 2015
A guinea was a pound and a shilling

Yes and no. A guinea was originally a gold coin and it's value fluctuated with the price of gold. That was obviously not very desirable so for about 100 years it's value was fixed at 21 shillings, until Britain adopted the gold standard, at which point the coin disappeared. After that it referred to a quantity of 21 shillings, but no coin of that value existed.

There was also a florin (2 shillings) and a groat (4 pennies), but the latter has not existed for a very long time. Those were both coins, but were not units of currency.

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AlanStevens19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
January 12, 2015

An old English sovereign was a coin that was nominally worth one old English pound (the standard pound was a note, not a coin in times past). The shilling was worth 12 old English pennies. There were 240 old English pennies in a pound.

Luckily, these days English money has been decimalised, so there are 100 (new) pennies in a pound (which is only available in coin form these days).

I'll leave you to produce a Mathcad conversion worksheet Valery!

Alan

PS I am old enough to remember pre-decimal English currency. There were also threepenny-bit and sixpenny-bit coins, florins (two-shilling coins), crowns (five-shilling coins), half-crowns (a coin worth two shillings and sixpence) and ten-shilling notes. And at a time I can barely remember there were half-pennies and farthings (1/4 of a penny) too!

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RichardJ19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
January 12, 2015

Farthings predate me (although I have a few that I got in change by accident), but I remember all the others. Does the expression "as bent as a 9 bob note" still exist in the UK? If it does then there must be a lot of people that don't understand where it comes from!

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AlanStevens19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
January 13, 2015

I haven't heard the expression "as bent as a 9 bob note" in decades; and, if it were used now, there would be many who wouldn't understand it at all, let alone where it comes from! (Note for those who don't know: a "bob" was slang for a shilling).

Alan

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ValeryOchkov24-Ruby IVAuthor
24-Ruby IV
January 15, 2015

One part from my last book^

When introduced the metric system of measures, it pursued not only purely practical purposes (ease of conversion), but also expelled from the natural sciences mysticism and superstition: non-metric (old) system of weights and measures based on the so-called sacred numbers: 3, 7, 12, 16, 21, 40, 7000, and so on. etc .: 3 feet in a yard in russian fathoms (сажень) 7 feet, 16 inches in russian arshin, in guinea 21 shilling, in russian pood 40 pounds, in libra 7000 grains etc.

(you can use googl-translator)

Почему в СИ семь основных физических величин (масса — килограмм, длина — метр, время — секунда, сила тока — ампер, температура — кельвин, сила света — кандела и количество вещества — моль), а не шесть или восемь? Такое чувство, что создатели СИ не устояли перед магией сакральных (прекрасных) чисел: в СИ семь основных размерностей потому, что... в радуге семь цветов, в октаве семь нот, в неделе семь дней, в истории семь мудрецов и т. п.

Основные размерности СИ можно условно разделить на три группы: 1) масса, длина и время; 2) сила тока и температура и 3) сила света и количество вещества. Первая группа (масса, длина и время) является основой не только для СИ, но и для более стройной системы измерений СГС (сантиметр — грамм — секунда), которую разработал еще великий Гаусс и которую до сих пор физики (и теоретики, и экспериментаторы) ни на что не променяют. Вторая группа — это плод развития физики после Гаусса, развития, в частности, электро- и термодинамики. Третья же группа — это то, что докладывают в набор, делая его "подарочным". Почему в СИ есть сила света, но нет силы звука, например, или силы запаха? Ведь, свет — это более субъективная субстанция, чем звук. Свет — это узкая полоса широчайшего диапазона электромагнитных колебаний (частиц), видимая глазом. Но акустиков в СИ не пустили — им пришлось довольствоваться (деци)белами ("недоединицей" измерений — логарифмом отношения двух величин)! Наверное, потому в СИ присутствуют светотехники, но нет там акустиков, что через зрение мы получаем до 90% информации, остальное приходится на слух, обоняние и пр.

Моли — это не что иное, как штуки, к которым приписан множитель — число Авогадро. Обычно такой множитель кратен десяти: дека, гекто, кило, мега, гига, всеми нами любимые нано и т. д. В случае со штуками эти множители оказались, в основном, неметрическими: пара, две пары, десяток, полдюжины, дюжина, чертова дюжина и т. д. до... числа Авогадро — до моля.

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