We are still resisting in many areas, the UK hasn't fully adopted the metric system either. we still use miles and yards for the roads, and we still use pints for some fluids such as milk. We also Use MPG Imperial gallon to work out our fuel economy despite using the metric system and filling up in litres.
The book of Good Omens has the full break down of pre-decimal currency in Britain and makes the joke about how Britain resisted decimalisation because it was too complex
I got the book recently and it was amusing to read how complicated it was, and then to see how little money it really was, I laughed at how pay was poorly handled.
That might have been due to either Sir Terry or Neil Gaiman. Pratchett definitely used it again in "Making Money", though that time with a more realistic turn to it: how many pennies does it cost to make pennies?
The only benefit of decimalisation was it was easier to calculate a whole number percentage. All they had to do was get rid of shillings and have 240 pence to a pound. 240 is so much better a number than 100. Count the factors if you don't believe me.
@@newperve But if you stick to decimals other calculations are easier because you simply have to move the comma because we use a decimal number system. Fractions can be handled in other ways.
no, the french regressed everyone from base 12 to base 10. The only reason base 10 is useful today is simply because it has been universally standardised unlike the imperial where the dodecimal system was inconsistent. Just look throughout history and even the ancients used base 12 simply because it was effective at trading and dividing.
yea, JK like many people writing stories about magic essentially stoped development at the middle ages and have them refuse to advance their own technology
@@samueleveleigh2767 As they are British writers, it's actually a humorous jab at the olde english currency. It's just a joke by the author, either laugh at the in-joke or move on, killjoy.
@@samueleveleigh2767 However it is contextually appropriate in Harry Potter, due to the elitist anti-muggle attitudes held by the majority of powerful wizards and the Ministry of Magic. JK Rowling made a lot of mistakes (mostly relating to her naive tokenism with Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Dumbledore, and Hermione) but the ignorant attitude of wizarding society towards muggles is one of the things that she presented consistently.
@@MrJoeyWheeler Decimal currency usually comes in two denominations, one being a hundred of the other. How can you even compare that to the tudor system?
Ikr. It was really irritating in Horrible Histories the same actor that played Cesare Borgia in the Addams family theme parody also played the guy who visited Rodrigo Borgia the Pope in the Godfather parody. Like they used the same actor for Rodrigo's son, as the person who visits Rodrigo. Not only was the actor the same, but the accent he used and the costume too! It's annoying enough this guy looks the same as Henry VIII during the same era but at he isn't wearing the same costume and visiting what should have been his father!
I was born long before decimalization. We still used this system. In fact, the guy missed one: The threepenny 'bit'. There were silver ones still around but the more usual type was a brass color. (I still have a few). The angel and groat had gone though everything else was as he laid it out here. We were brought up with it and it didn't seem strange. In fact a lot of people struggled with the changeover to decimals.
"Out goes the pounds, the shillings and the pence. Income the dollars. Income the cents. Keep that in mind when the money starts to switch, on the 14th of February 1966." - The only reason why Australia uses dollars and not pounds is because a 1965 pound would be worth twice as much as a 1966 pound. 2p and 3p from 1965 would also both be worth 2p in 1966. so if you bought something that's 3p in 1966 but you bought it with three 1p coins from 1965 you'd be 1p short, however, if you use one more 1p coin from 1965 you would have paid 4p and you get 1p change. Or if you bought something that's 3p with two 1966 1p coins but one p1 coins from 1966 you'd be 0.33 pence short. In short, thank goodness we chose to use the dollar.
Sounds just as easy as Imperial distance measurements: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, 10 chains in a furlong, 8 furlongs in a mile. This is why the definition of a mile as 5280 feet seems like such a strange number, because chains and furlongs aren't commonly used anymore.
you guys are aware that this was also the case for practically all of europe, that is the whole reason why money changers existed it is also how national banks came to be, because the bank of amsterdam a proto national bank was the first bank to issue bank notes to put against money put in the bank, this meant that even if a currency was devaluated the vallue at the bank would remain the same,
It was like this in 1970 so people in their 60s and older would still know how it works with ease but basically instead of pennies and pounds with 100p being a pound it was 240p for every pound
i think they just wanted more coins to put people on "you get a coin with your face on it, you get a coin with your face on it, you get a coin with your face on it, everyone gets a coin with their face on it!"
I remember the US news stories in the mid-60's as the UK was bracing for the shock of decimal money. The stores were hiring many young women to be "Decimal Dollies" whose job it was to explain the complicated new money system to the poor bewildered customers. Kind of ironic, eh? BTW, the very first Doctor Who episode, "An Unearthly Child" (Nov. 1963), has a scene where the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, who was otherwise absolutely brilliant and yet was confused when trying to figure change until she realized, "Oh yeah, they haven't switched to decimal yet!" The Seventh Doctor series, "Remembrance of the Daleks", took place at the same place right after the events of "An Unearthly Child" and was filled with references to that first episode, like the tellie playing the introduction to the first broadcast of Doctor Who. And like Seventh's companion, Ace, being confused trying to figure out the pre-decimal money.
It's really not that hard. start with the pound, representative of one poundweight of sterling silver. Divide it by a score and you have a shilling. Divide that by a dozen and you have a penny. Everything else is simple fractions of those three main denominations. 1 Penny dividede in: 1/2 - ha'penny (half pennies) 1/4 - farthing (fourth-ings) 1 shilling divides into 1/2 - sixpence 1/4 - thrippence (three pence) 1/3 - groat (four pence) 1/6 - tuppance/half groat (two pence) 1/12 penny (copper) 1 pound divides into: 1 - gold sovereign 1/2 - angel(10 shillings) 1/4 - Crown (5 shillings) 1/8 - half-crown (2 shillings sixpence) 1/10 - florin (2 shillings) 1/20 - shilling (bob) More than a pound was: 1 1/20 - Guinea Just a different way of thinking about fractions.
@@jusufagung It's an antiquated term, like how a dozen is 12. Google says it's because when one was counting their cattle herd, they would put a score on a stick for every 20 they counted.
No idea why ppl had an issues with pounds and pence when decimal system first came out...when my mam worked in 70s she had to deal with pounds, shillings and pence, i can't get my head round it
Like a lot of British things, the base of this system is actually French, introduced by Charlemagne and used until 1794, so the French guy wouldn't have much trouble understanding the currency as long as he could learn the new names.
I'm old enough not only to remember the LSD coinage, but just remember farthings. The change over was an absolute shambles as the post office was on strike and the booklets explaining the change were only delivered weeks after it was all over.
Depends on what issue of sovereign, crown, half-crown you want xD The Early Tudor Sovereigns were Gold and around 15g, the later Victorian Sovereigns weighed a paltry 8g in comparison. The earliest Crowns and Half-Crowns were also issued in Gold but were superseded by Silver coins. The Later Silver Crown weighing between 28 and 32g, however it is dwarfed by the 1797 'Cartwheel' Tuppence of King George III which weighs 2 Ounces of Pure Copper. That was the heaviest coin Britain has ever issued.
English currency system was influenced by Roman currency, and it was broadly similar: Aureus (gold) = 25 denarii. Denarius (silver) = 2 quinarii. Quinarius (silver) = 2 sestertii. Sestertius = 2 duopndii. Dupondius = 2 asses. As (copper) = 2 semiasses. Semis (copper) = 2 quadrantes. Money had value then, and many people never saw aureus with their own eyes: "For one as you can drink wine For two you can drink the best For four you can drink Falernian." - from the wall of Pompei
That currency measurement system is even more confusing than the British Imperial Unit measurement system still notoriously used in the United States. Curse my nation's backwards measurements that go in base numbers 3,4, 8, 12, 16, & 5280!!!
And then one day someone said "Hey you know, how about I give you these gold coins, and you give me a receipt telling me how much I've given you so I can get it back later?" And that's how we got paper money.
I think we should bring this system back, honestly. The only confusing thing here is that the coins are given about three different _slang_ terms, which makes it hard to wrap your head around which coins are which. However, I'd rather we have a more complex pre-decimal system that forces us to be more calculative than a stripped-down, simple decimal system that has no charm.
Rather than decimals the old system seems as though it was based upon fractions. With a good foundation of math skills fractions aren't complicated either. It's just a different way of thinking.
I grew up with LSD (no... not lysergic acid..... pounds, shillings and pence!)... quite easy once you get your head around it, and it has advantages that no 10-based system can have.... :-)
Because money was made of metal to the value of the coin, any country could strike a coin that would be worth it's stated value so long as they kept up there quality control. This affected the British coin system, because as a trading nation, we needed to be able to accept the widest possible array of currancy. And if our currency is directly equivilent to theirs, only with different designs, then all the better for trade. Just not too good for daily use. Once coin's value became notional rather than actual, Decimalisation beckoned. (thank goodness)
The UK is officially metric in weights and measures but in practice, it's not many people still use feet and inches and weigh things in pounds and ounces when following a recipe. Speeds on the road are in MPH and people ask how many miles to the gallon does your car do. Still pretty mixed up.
@Fred Smith Sure, the definition of a metre may be just as arbitrary, but everything else about the metric system is neat, tidy and a lot easier. In the imperial system you have twelve inches to the foot, three feet to the yard and 1760 yards to the mile, iirc. In the metric system you have 1000 millimetres to the metre and 1000 metres to the kilometre, and to convert from any scale to any other scale you simple add or subtract the requisite number of zeroes instead of having to divide or multiply by twelve, three or 1760, for example. It's also more flexible. How would you express a size that is usually measured in nanometres (one billionth of a metre, in case you didn't know) in the imperial system without using some form of metric system, i.e. a decimal point and a lot of zeroes? Or what about astronomical distances? Take the distance to Proxima Centauri, for example, the closest star to our sun. In the metric system it's, very roughly, 4*10^16 m (or 40 petametres). Of course you can use the same system for miles, but that's basically half a switch to the metric system. If you don't want to use the metric system at all, you end up with, and I hope I've got all of this right, roughly 25 000 000 000 000 miles. Heck, Americans even regularly use and understand the metric system when they talk about how much RAM they have or how much data their phone can store. The entire world is used to talking about MB and GB, and people who need to know these things know that 1 GB = 1000 MB.
@Fred Smith Congratulations, you've tried to insult me right off the bat and not grasped my point in one fell swoop. Yes, any distance can be measured in any system, but the metric system is the most convenient system we have. You're proving that point with the thou, by the way, as that's a base 10 way of expressing units smaller than an inch. And if anyone using the imperial system ever needs to express anything smaller than a thou, they probably use decimals, don't they? As for 1/3, no system is perfect. There is a workaround, of course, but first I would like to point out that 1/3 of a unit only ever works in the specific cases you've laid out. It fails when measuring anything larger or smaller than that and when measuring volumes, too. Now, the workaround. Did you really think that the system used by the scientific community didn't account for that? Sadly it's not able to be displayed in RUclips comments, but repeating fractions of any kind can be written with an overscore or vinculum: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinculum_(symbol) See, my point is that any workaround the imperial system has to overcome its shortcomings is inevitably going to be base 10, i.e. the metric system. And where the metric system has its shortcomings, it doesn't borrow from the imperial system.
@Fred Smith As I said, the RUclips comment section does not support the symbol used for repeating decimals. I gave you a link where you could take a look at it. Despite your story, the base 10 system is the best we have. You are free to point to a different system that works better. Base 12 is all fine and dandy when you have to divide, but with our numerical system it's just not as easily written down as base 10 is. I'll grant you it works better for angles, but that's because there you have to be able to divide into lots of different things and you don't usually go higher than 360 (and if you do, there's rarely an opportunity to go crazy high like you would do with units of distance, mass or money). And sure, any system can work. My point is that the metric system works better than any other, and certainly a hell of a lot better than the imperial system. You're demonstrating this by bringing up edge cases where something else works better, and you have to appeal to a different system each time. The metric system is pretty much universal. Don't you think there's a reason that you have to use the metric system in your work? Cause it's no coincidence that "one pretty much has to these days".
Well there aren't really denominations, it's just a different name for coins that represented multiples of either a penny or a shilling. If you keep in mind how many shillings or pennies your coins were worth, it's not so bad.
@zoodensha Thanks for the info - that's really fascinating. I guess it helped solve the problem of dilution of gold/silver content (she asks having no idea whatsoever)?
it's not really, 12 pennies to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound. Decimilisation might be easier, but it's not like the old system is impossible to understand.
I would be a horrible cashier back in the day . Thats crazy! glad I'm in America its pretty simple . We got : pennies 0.01c 100 =$1.00 a nickle .05c (5= a quarter ) a quarter .25c (4 = $1.00 2= .50c ) ) half a dollar .50c (not used often ) and dollar 1.00 . ( coins rarely used and collectibles) With pre-counted 4 quarters, two dimes, a nickle , and 4 pennies I can give back any variation of change needed and quickly
"The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated." - "Good Omens"
*coughs in metric while eyeballing the US*
We don't think it's too complicated. We fully realize we are being stubborn.
@@matthewshell5388 Oh, I dunno. I've seen people argue that the metric system makes no sense to them while the imperial system is perfectly logical.
We are still resisting in many areas, the UK hasn't fully adopted the metric system either. we still use miles and yards for the roads, and we still use pints for some fluids such as milk. We also Use MPG Imperial gallon to work out our fuel economy despite using the metric system and filling up in litres.
@@paualamar US has officially used the metric system since 1866. Why do you care if we also use several other measurement systems?
The book of Good Omens has the full break down of pre-decimal currency in Britain and makes the joke about how Britain resisted decimalisation because it was too complex
I got the book recently and it was amusing to read how complicated it was, and then to see how little money it really was, I laughed at how pay was poorly handled.
That might have been due to either Sir Terry or Neil Gaiman. Pratchett definitely used it again in "Making Money", though that time with a more realistic turn to it: how many pennies does it cost to make pennies?
The only benefit of decimalisation was it was easier to calculate a whole number percentage. All they had to do was get rid of shillings and have 240 pence to a pound. 240 is so much better a number than 100. Count the factors if you don't believe me.
@@newperve But if you stick to decimals other calculations are easier because you simply have to move the comma because we use a decimal number system.
Fractions can be handled in other ways.
This is what imperial measurements feel like to me as a European
Yes. Just yes. I agree so much😂
I’m American and I agree. The metric system makes sense.
I actually learnt how this works.
Yes this is why as a Canadian I am grateful that we use metric.
I love the metric system, it’s just why is there nothing between a meter and a centimeter? That is such a big difference!
Right, I think I’ve got this:
Farthing = 0.25 Pennies
Half-Penny = 0.5 Pennies
Penny
Half-Groat = 2 Pennies
Groat = 4 Pennies
Sixpence = 6 Pennies / 3 Half-Groats
Shilling = 12 Pennies
Half-Crown / Quarter-Angel = 30 Pennies / 2 Shillings + Sixpence
Crown / Half-Angel = 60 Pennies / 5 Shillings
Angel / Half-Pound = 120 Pennies / 10 Shillings
Pound = 240 Pennies / 20 Shillings
Sovereign = 360 Pennies / 30 Shillings
Thank goodness we eventually went decimal!
Well done sir.
Wow
no, the french regressed everyone from base 12 to base 10. The only reason base 10 is useful today is simply because it has been universally standardised unlike the imperial where the dodecimal system was inconsistent. Just look throughout history and even the ancients used base 12 simply because it was effective at trading and dividing.
@@The_Caledonian I'd 'azard that they progressed everyone from base 12 to base 10. 'Specially considering that it wasn't even a base 12 system!
@@joewilson3575 Your statement is invalid. "Progressing" from 12 to 10 does not make sense.
Now I understand what the currency for Harry Potter was based on
yea, JK like many people writing stories about magic essentially stoped development at the middle ages and have them refuse to advance their own technology
@@samueleveleigh2767
As they are British writers, it's actually a humorous jab at the olde english currency. It's just a joke by the author, either laugh at the in-joke or move on, killjoy.
@@samueleveleigh2767 However it is contextually appropriate in Harry Potter, due to the elitist anti-muggle attitudes held by the majority of powerful wizards and the Ministry of Magic. JK Rowling made a lot of mistakes (mostly relating to her naive tokenism with Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Dumbledore, and Hermione) but the ignorant attitude of wizarding society towards muggles is one of the things that she presented consistently.
That's even worse, because it doesn't even use numbers that can be divided up!
@@nathangamble125 How is Lavender token
Is no one going to mention the fact that Henry VIII is teaching his new subjects about money? No one?
could be a bastard cousin...
Undetermined
True
Ad Lockhorst no it’s because the same actor played Henry VIII dressed in almost the exact same way
Face it, so many of us would have FAILED at trying to figure out Tudor currency.
TokyoQueen or you can just ask for what is the least valuable coin and work your way up the values
No you wouldn't. You just have to learn it, like you do for modern decimal currency. It's hardly any different.
@@MrJoeyWheeler It's quite different, you wouldn't compare counting by two's to memorizing prime numbers would you? One is much harder than the other.
Damian Freeman it's extremely different.
@@MrJoeyWheeler Decimal currency usually comes in two denominations, one being a hundred of the other. How can you even compare that to the tudor system?
Well done to Ben to get through this take without messing up. I could not have kept it straight.
These guys are such good actors. :)
He kept saying "which is equal to" to make it sound more complicated than it really is
I thought that was Henry VIII in the thumbnail, lol! Ben shouldn’t try to play more than one bearded Tudor guy
I thought that too! But it makes sense, since everyone tried to look like the current monarch in high fashion.
Ikr. It was really irritating in Horrible Histories the same actor that played Cesare Borgia in the Addams family theme parody also played the guy who visited Rodrigo Borgia the Pope in the Godfather parody.
Like they used the same actor for Rodrigo's son, as the person who visits Rodrigo. Not only was the actor the same, but the accent he used and the costume too!
It's annoying enough this guy looks the same as Henry VIII during the same era but at he isn't wearing the same costume and visiting what should have been his father!
THANK YOU for putting this on here I needed it for a project lol
I wish we kept it like this, this would confuse the hell out of the tourists,
I was born long before decimalization. We still used this system. In fact, the guy missed one: The threepenny 'bit'. There were silver ones still around but the more usual type was a brass color. (I still have a few). The angel and groat had gone though everything else was as he laid it out here.
We were brought up with it and it didn't seem strange. In fact a lot of people struggled with the changeover to decimals.
How tf did Ben Willbond remember all this, I could never 😂✨
Poor Ben, imagine having to rehearse those lines. :)
"Out goes the pounds, the shillings and the pence. Income the dollars. Income the cents. Keep that in mind when the money starts to switch, on the 14th of February 1966." - The only reason why Australia uses dollars and not pounds is because a 1965 pound would be worth twice as much as a 1966 pound.
2p and 3p from 1965 would also both be worth 2p in 1966. so if you bought something that's 3p in 1966 but you bought it with three 1p coins from 1965 you'd be 1p short, however, if you use one more 1p coin from 1965 you would have paid 4p and you get 1p change. Or if you bought something that's 3p with two 1966 1p coins but one p1 coins from 1966 you'd be 0.33 pence short. In short, thank goodness we chose to use the dollar.
Sounds just as easy as Imperial distance measurements: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, 10 chains in a furlong, 8 furlongs in a mile. This is why the definition of a mile as 5280 feet seems like such a strange number, because chains and furlongs aren't commonly used anymore.
you guys are aware that this was also the case for practically all of europe, that is the whole reason why money changers existed
it is also how national banks came to be, because the bank of amsterdam a proto national bank was the first bank to issue bank notes to put against money put in the bank, this meant that even if a currency was devaluated the vallue at the bank would remain the same,
It's only a bit complicated - 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound. The confusion is because every coin has a nickname
My dad said if you lived in that century, you would understand.
me: Or the country but we find it harder because we're from the 21st century.
How the heck did people understand the currancy. I still can't get my head round it and I've watch this 5 times!
*currency
It was like this in 1970 so people in their 60s and older would still know how it works with ease but basically instead of pennies and pounds with 100p being a pound it was 240p for every pound
Yup, it really makes me curious now, how the hell did they fix this money system in the past.
Whatever they pay that guy.
It ain't enough.
i think they just wanted more coins to put people on
"you get a coin with your face on it, you get a coin with your face on it, you get a coin with your face on it, everyone gets a coin with their face on it!"
God i love Jim Howick his french acsent is so funny XP
OMG! I couldn't understand a word he said!!!
I remember the US news stories in the mid-60's as the UK was bracing for the shock of decimal money. The stores were hiring many young women to be "Decimal Dollies" whose job it was to explain the complicated new money system to the poor bewildered customers. Kind of ironic, eh?
BTW, the very first Doctor Who episode, "An Unearthly Child" (Nov. 1963), has a scene where the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, who was otherwise absolutely brilliant and yet was confused when trying to figure change until she realized, "Oh yeah, they haven't switched to decimal yet!" The Seventh Doctor series, "Remembrance of the Daleks", took place at the same place right after the events of "An Unearthly Child" and was filled with references to that first episode, like the tellie playing the introduction to the first broadcast of Doctor Who. And like Seventh's companion, Ace, being confused trying to figure out the pre-decimal money.
I remember this currency until 1971!
The speed at which this guy talks, he's giving Bob Hale a run for his money.
It's really not that hard. start with the pound, representative of one poundweight of sterling silver. Divide it by a score and you have a shilling. Divide that by a dozen and you have a penny. Everything else is simple fractions of those three main denominations.
1 Penny dividede in:
1/2 - ha'penny (half pennies)
1/4 - farthing (fourth-ings)
1 shilling divides into
1/2 - sixpence
1/4 - thrippence (three pence)
1/3 - groat (four pence)
1/6 - tuppance/half groat (two pence)
1/12 penny (copper)
1 pound divides into:
1 - gold sovereign
1/2 - angel(10 shillings)
1/4 - Crown (5 shillings)
1/8 - half-crown (2 shillings sixpence)
1/10 - florin (2 shillings)
1/20 - shilling (bob)
More than a pound was:
1 1/20 - Guinea
Just a different way of thinking about fractions.
I'm so dumb
whats a score? is it like 1/4 or 1/2?
@@HosCreates a score is 20.
@@orbemsolis How is a score a twenty?
@@jusufagung It's an antiquated term, like how a dozen is 12. Google says it's because when one was counting their cattle herd, they would put a score on a stick for every 20 they counted.
This must be what explaining IT stuff sounds like in the perspective of really old people
UK: "We resist decimalized currency."
[Brexit happens]
UK: "Take my money, pleeeaaasssee!"
No idea why ppl had an issues with pounds and pence when decimal system first came out...when my mam worked in 70s she had to deal with pounds, shillings and pence, i can't get my head round it
If I time travel to that era I'm fucked as hell
Like a lot of British things, the base of this system is actually French, introduced by Charlemagne and used until 1794, so the French guy wouldn't have much trouble understanding the currency as long as he could learn the new names.
...and we did this right up until 1971
I only comprehend the dollar and yen. until now the dollar was the most complicated...
"Urghhh...I....Urghhhh?" LOL
I'm old enough not only to remember the LSD coinage, but just remember farthings. The change over was an absolute shambles as the post office was on strike and the booklets explaining the change were only delivered weeks after it was all over.
Depends on what issue of sovereign, crown, half-crown you want xD The Early Tudor Sovereigns were Gold and around 15g, the later Victorian Sovereigns weighed a paltry 8g in comparison. The earliest Crowns and Half-Crowns were also issued in Gold but were superseded by Silver coins. The Later Silver Crown weighing between 28 and 32g, however it is dwarfed by the 1797 'Cartwheel' Tuppence of King George III which weighs 2 Ounces of Pure Copper. That was the heaviest coin Britain has ever issued.
I read an entire website on old British coins. Then I watched this. I'm still having a hard time.
Actually more easy than you think 12 penies in a Schilling, 20 Schillings in a pound. All the other coins are just multiples of those coins
Here in the US they want to get rid of pennies (1 cent) since their cost out weighs their worth.
And they've already done that in Canada
As an American I’m trying to understand how decimal currency is as old as the constitution in the US, but we still do no like metric?
I'm so glad America didn't keep the same currency
Look at them thinking anything has changed.
English currency system was influenced by Roman currency, and it was broadly similar:
Aureus (gold) = 25 denarii.
Denarius (silver) = 2 quinarii.
Quinarius (silver) = 2 sestertii.
Sestertius = 2 duopndii.
Dupondius = 2 asses.
As (copper) = 2 semiasses.
Semis (copper) = 2 quadrantes.
Money had value then, and many people never saw aureus with their own eyes:
"For one as you can drink wine
For two you can drink the best
For four you can drink Falernian."
- from the wall of Pompei
That currency measurement system is even more confusing than the British Imperial Unit measurement system still notoriously used in the United States. Curse my nation's backwards measurements that go in base numbers 3,4, 8, 12, 16, & 5280!!!
Me when I describe the fictional currency system I came up with for the setting I made:
They also had a threepence which had the value of 3 pennies or a quarter of a shilling
Now im glad we only have pounds and pence
It must have been a nightmare to learn the script for this!
This is where J.K. Rowling got her inspiration for her ridiculous money system
Which is even more ridiculous as it uses prime numbers - at least this used numbers that can be divided!
No wonder so many top mathematicians came out of the UK. You had to solve a PDE just to make change at a corner store.
And then one day someone said "Hey you know, how about I give you these gold coins, and you give me a receipt telling me how much I've given you so I can get it back later?" And that's how we got paper money.
The evolution of paper money is an amazing thing.
I think we should bring this system back, honestly.
The only confusing thing here is that the coins are given about three different _slang_ terms, which makes it hard to wrap your head around which coins are which.
However, I'd rather we have a more complex pre-decimal system that forces us to be more calculative than a stripped-down, simple decimal system that has no charm.
The funniest part about this is most of the people back then were uneducated. I'm great at math and this makes no sense to me.
Rather than decimals the old system seems as though it was based upon fractions. With a good foundation of math skills fractions aren't complicated either. It's just a different way of thinking.
I grew up with LSD (no... not lysergic acid..... pounds, shillings and pence!)... quite easy once you get your head around it, and it has advantages that no 10-based system can have.... :-)
*hearing him talk about all the different kinds of money* me: fuck this! *gets back on the boat*
I'm going to watch this video again and again until I understand.
im a future historian and i dont even understand the tudor money system
I now understand the, "I don't give a farthing about your problems!". I always thought the person meant passing gas, not a coin.
Yeah, they might have improved on that in the last century but everything else is still medieval.
I luv horrible histories so entertaining 😂😅
If I'll become president I'll put this system in the United States!
me, my brother, my mum and my dad have watched it 16 times already and we still dont understand
Because money was made of metal to the value of the coin, any country could strike a coin that would be worth it's stated value so long as they kept up there quality control. This affected the British coin system, because as a trading nation, we needed to be able to accept the widest possible array of currancy. And if our currency is directly equivilent to theirs, only with different designs, then all the better for trade.
Just not too good for daily use. Once coin's value became notional rather than actual, Decimalisation beckoned. (thank goodness)
this is just me trying to understand the imperial measurement system
Ugh, this makes my head hurt. So unnecessarily complicated. >_
lol, pre-metric weights are measurements are about as nonsensical as this too. Thank goodness it's extinct.
*hugs metre stick*
The UK is officially metric in weights and measures but in practice, it's not many people still use feet and inches and weigh things in pounds and ounces when following a recipe. Speeds on the road are in MPH and people ask how many miles to the gallon does your car do. Still pretty mixed up.
@@knightowl3577 true but no one under 30 weighs things in pounds and ounces
@Fred Smith Sure, the definition of a metre may be just as arbitrary, but everything else about the metric system is neat, tidy and a lot easier. In the imperial system you have twelve inches to the foot, three feet to the yard and 1760 yards to the mile, iirc. In the metric system you have 1000 millimetres to the metre and 1000 metres to the kilometre, and to convert from any scale to any other scale you simple add or subtract the requisite number of zeroes instead of having to divide or multiply by twelve, three or 1760, for example.
It's also more flexible. How would you express a size that is usually measured in nanometres (one billionth of a metre, in case you didn't know) in the imperial system without using some form of metric system, i.e. a decimal point and a lot of zeroes? Or what about astronomical distances? Take the distance to Proxima Centauri, for example, the closest star to our sun. In the metric system it's, very roughly, 4*10^16 m (or 40 petametres). Of course you can use the same system for miles, but that's basically half a switch to the metric system. If you don't want to use the metric system at all, you end up with, and I hope I've got all of this right, roughly 25 000 000 000 000 miles.
Heck, Americans even regularly use and understand the metric system when they talk about how much RAM they have or how much data their phone can store. The entire world is used to talking about MB and GB, and people who need to know these things know that 1 GB = 1000 MB.
@Fred Smith Congratulations, you've tried to insult me right off the bat and not grasped my point in one fell swoop. Yes, any distance can be measured in any system, but the metric system is the most convenient system we have. You're proving that point with the thou, by the way, as that's a base 10 way of expressing units smaller than an inch. And if anyone using the imperial system ever needs to express anything smaller than a thou, they probably use decimals, don't they?
As for 1/3, no system is perfect. There is a workaround, of course, but first I would like to point out that 1/3 of a unit only ever works in the specific cases you've laid out. It fails when measuring anything larger or smaller than that and when measuring volumes, too.
Now, the workaround. Did you really think that the system used by the scientific community didn't account for that? Sadly it's not able to be displayed in RUclips comments, but repeating fractions of any kind can be written with an overscore or vinculum:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinculum_(symbol)
See, my point is that any workaround the imperial system has to overcome its shortcomings is inevitably going to be base 10, i.e. the metric system. And where the metric system has its shortcomings, it doesn't borrow from the imperial system.
@Fred Smith As I said, the RUclips comment section does not support the symbol used for repeating decimals. I gave you a link where you could take a look at it.
Despite your story, the base 10 system is the best we have. You are free to point to a different system that works better. Base 12 is all fine and dandy when you have to divide, but with our numerical system it's just not as easily written down as base 10 is. I'll grant you it works better for angles, but that's because there you have to be able to divide into lots of different things and you don't usually go higher than 360 (and if you do, there's rarely an opportunity to go crazy high like you would do with units of distance, mass or money).
And sure, any system can work. My point is that the metric system works better than any other, and certainly a hell of a lot better than the imperial system. You're demonstrating this by bringing up edge cases where something else works better, and you have to appeal to a different system each time. The metric system is pretty much universal. Don't you think there's a reason that you have to use the metric system in your work? Cause it's no coincidence that "one pretty much has to these days".
1/4 penny= farthing, 1/2 penny= half penny, 1 penny= penny, 2 penny= half groat, 4 penny= groat, 6 penny= sixpence, 12 penny= shilling, 30 penny= half crown, 60 penny= crown, 120 penny= angel, 240 penny= pound, 360 penny= Sovereign.
Yes, I do have too much time on my hands.
Yet somehow even small children understood it... for hundreds of years.
Well, no wonder all the Commonwealths and former colonies went to dollars and cents! :P
It makes perfect sense, there were just too many denominations.
Well there aren't really denominations, it's just a different name for coins that represented multiples of either a penny or a shilling. If you keep in mind how many shillings or pennies your coins were worth, it's not so bad.
I had to pause the video several times to think about what was being said. However, the amounts do make sense if you pay attention.
you lost me at six pence
+Zachary Benson He lost me when he started naming the currency. I was gone the second he got to that part.
@zoodensha Thanks for the info - that's really fascinating. I guess it helped solve the problem of dilution of gold/silver content (she asks having no idea whatsoever)?
I love this one
And you thought the magical monetary system in the Harry Potter books was complicated.
240 pennies in a pound, simples, it is what I grew up with
i'd rather be poor than figure out all that
This feels like it's insulting our pre-decimal currency, which was perfectly fine even if not as intuitive as base-10.
I just found a table that explain what the currencies worth.
It's still hard as hell to understand.
it's not really, 12 pennies to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound. Decimilisation might be easier, but it's not like the old system is impossible to understand.
Just one more reason Americans should not let anyone from the UK mock us for not using the Metric System...
I think this is a video that mocks us for NOT using the metric system...
I'm SO glad that we don't use this type of money system today because for people who have horrible memory like me would be bad.
This is how I feel when I try to talk to guys.
i would hop back on that ship and sail home
I wonder why they didn't just put a number on coins, like One groat with 4 penny near it.
I'm now thankful for the less complicated currency. Oh boy! economics must have been a pain in the ass back then.
I would be a horrible cashier back in the day . Thats crazy! glad I'm in America its pretty simple . We got :
pennies 0.01c 100 =$1.00
a nickle .05c (5= a quarter )
a quarter .25c (4 = $1.00 2= .50c ) )
half a dollar .50c (not used often )
and dollar 1.00 . ( coins rarely used and collectibles)
With pre-counted 4 quarters, two dimes, a nickle , and 4 pennies I can give back any variation of change needed and quickly
I hear that this is not to different from pre-1971 UK currency.
*too
Meanwhile, in the future...
im from the US but the Sovereign if i have my history straight was made out of gold which would make it the heaviest in moderation
wow this is like math class all over again lol
Quite simple actually.
Just like the Imperial measurements.
Although were all of these used in the same locations? ._.
what was french currency like at the time?
Shoot. I just made a time machine which will only go to the Tudor days as well :( !
@Princess101855 they way they present it in the video is designed to sound and feel sazzling. and getting accostumed to it, it becomes quite natural.
Swedish currency
Coins:
50 Öre (not used though anymore)
1 Krona (100 öre)
5 Kronor
10 Kronor
Banknotes:
20 Kronor
50 Kronor
100 Kronor
500 Kronor
1000 Kronor