Pre-Decimal Coins

Old British Coins £.s.d. or Pre-Decimal Coins

The old system of British coinage or pre-decimal coins (Old Coins for short), dated back to Roman times, and it was known as £.s.d. Back in those days, a pound (£) of silver was divided into 240 pence (d) or denarius which is where the ‘d’ in £SD comes from (librum, solidus, denarius). There were 20 shillings to a pound and 12 pence to a shilling.

In 1971 the pre-decimal coinage was replaced by the decimal coinage now in use, the last circulating coins of this system were the Crown, Half Crown, Florin, English Shilling, Scottish Shilling, Sixpence, Brass Threepence, Penny and Halfpenny. But before that many other denominations existed, including some very peculiar ones like the Guinea (worth 21 shillings or £1.05 in decimalised currency), which had aristocratic overtones and survived as a unit of account in professional fields, prices of land, horses, art, bespoke tailoring and other luxury items until a couple of years after 1971. All of these services would often be quoted and invoiced in Guineas.

Of course not all of the denominations survived until 1971 - Nobles and Angels for example, did not survive the change over from hammered coinage to milled coinage. So it would be almost impossible to have all of the denominations here, but below you can find all of the old pre-decimal British milled coin denominations: