Where is the logic?

[Kromaatikse]

Enamel or ceramic?

[stephenholmes]

Good afternoon
The kettle shown in Erics photo would most likely be aluminium
Kind regards Stephen
Ps A quick check of Erics post and sure enough it is aluminium... not bad for 17pence in todays decimal currency

[markwhale]

Enamel Mugs!!! do they still make such a thing?. My guess would be somewhere around 2p each. If you guys start talking old money then that's really going to throw me! All I remember is there was 240 pennies to the pound, a shilling was worth 5p, two bob bit was 10p and a sixpence was 2-1/2p. Then again, I could have got that wrong.

I do remember going decimal, which was around 1971, I was 7yrs old and was given a new 2p coin to get some sweets. Four black-jacks or Fruit Salads, a Jamboree Bag was 1p with a 1p in my pocket and, yes, bag of chips was 5p. I also remember the half crown and threepenny bit (sorry for the spelling).

To think that a bag of chips at £1.50 a bag now, you would have never had believed it back then!. Get a few kettles with that Stephen

Have a good and safe day to all

Mark.

[davejc64]

OK, here's one, how did they arrive at the figure of 240 old pennies to a pound in the pre-decimal currency?

[markwhale]

I recall an old friend of mine who tried to explain the old currency to me sometime back and I recall him saying that 240 old pennies weighed a pound? Not sure if this was right or I have miss-understood but that would be my best guess!!

Mark.

[john13]

240 old pennies weighed a pound

240 very old pennies once weighed a very old pound;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennies

Cheers

John

[davejc64]

I found this I haven't read it properly but it might explain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%A3sd

[markwhale]

I still know people who find the transition from old money to new confusing, some forty years later. I was young when we went decimal so I only knew the value of the new currency. But did they not drop the halfpenny because it was worthless and too small, lost easily from pockets and purses only to later see the 5p being reduced in size (not much bigger than the halfpence piece) and equally worthless in its value?

I read somewhere that there is a proposal to do away with denominations less than ten pence? What value does the 1p, 2p and 5p have now and only seems to be used to promote and encourage a sale. £5.99 will sell better than £6.00, after all, I use this often when I purchase something that my wife knows nothing about and I am found out!! It was only 30 something pound dear (£39.99), kind of take the sting out of it somehow

Mark.

[davejc64]

I do hope for your sake your wife don't read this forum!

[rufuskins]

Personally I've never recovered from when they got rid of the "groat"!

Alec

PS The groat was worth about fourpence in very old money - ceased to be used circa 1850s!

[Kromaatikse]

When I was very young, the (decimal) halfpenny was still in use (and relevant for bus fares) and 5p and 10p coins were often still old shilling and 2-shilling coins, occasionally even still sporting a King's head instead of the Queen's! There was also no such thing as a £2 coin.

As I understand it, the old penny represented the value of a pennyweight of silver - a pennyweight being a *very* small amount - and 240 pennyweights made a troy pound of silver, which is what the Pound Sterling was originally based on. Copper being cheaper than silver, it was used to make the coin a reasonable size to handle without being too expensive to make. These days a coin-sized quantity of copper is worth considerably more than the coin, so "copper" coins are really copper-plated steel (as can be proved with a magnet).

Over here in Finland, the 1- and 2-cent Euro coins are not used except as collectors items, so the only copper coin is the 5-cent piece. Prices are still quoted to the nearest cent though, so how is this resolved? Using what's known as "Swedish rounding", the total is added up exactly, but if you pay by cash, the total is then rounded unambiguously to the nearest 5 cents. If you pay by card, the exact total is used. The price paid by cash is at most 2 cents wrong either way, which isn't worth sweating over.

As for enamel mugs, I'm reasonably sure they are still available for the camping/expedition/survival crowd. They have the advantage over stainless steel types (which are now more common) that you can more easily avoid touching bare metal, and thus burns or freezes. (The stereotype about licking a flagpole in Canada is there for a reason - although I doubt that any sane person would lick a flagpole even in a warmer country.)