Making cents of old money a complex sum

SIXTY years ago South Africa switched from the old British monetary system to the simpler decimal system.

Modern schoolchildren should be enormously grateful.

There are still a few of us oldies around who grew up with pounds, shillings and pence, and I often wonder how today’s young people would have coped before rand and cents appeared. Looking back, the old money was incredibly complicated.

You had 20 shillings to a pound and each shilling consisted of 12 pennies. The biggest coin in the purse was a half crown, which was worth two shillings and six pence.

In my youth there was no crown coin, so the half crown was half of something that didn’t exist.

We did have two shilling coins, though. They were called florins.

The smallest silver coin was worth three pennies and was known as a “ticky”. Unlike today’s cents, pennies had value. You could buy four Sharpe’s toffees for a penny.

The penny was divided into four farthings or two ha’pennies.

To make matters more interesting, we seldom used words like “pounds” or “shillings”. They were “quid” and “Bob”. Still with me? For two Bob you could buy a shoot-load of Sharpe’s toffees. At boarding school we used to get sixpence pocket money a week. We thought we were rich kids, going from shop to shop with sixpence to spend.

Imagine how different the maths problems were then.

“If toffees cost a farthing each, how many toffees would I get for a florin?”

Of course, human nature needs complication, so we have introduced the “99cent” rule. Modern shops automatically end the prices on their tickets with 99. Nothing costs R20 any more. R20 items have price tickets saying R19,99. Nobody has the time to count out 99 cents, so we pay with a R20 note and receive a tiny one-cent coin with the cash slip. And what use is a one cent coin, I ask you. It’s not even worth a farthing. Couldn’t even buy a Sharpe’s toffee with it.

Last Laugh

A woman called her insurance company: “My house burnt down. I want you to pay me R3 million.”

“We don’t work like that, madam,” said the broker. “We will pay you what we consider your house was worth.”

The woman thought for a moment, then said: “I would like to cancel the policy I took out on my husband.”