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How to Convert Old English Money

Before 1971 British currency was divided into pounds, shillings and pennies until decimalization was introduced which got rid of the shilling and reorganized how much the pound was worth. Converting old English money into new is not as straightforward as converting today's pounds to dollars as the value of the coins has changed due to collecting and the relative buying power of the pound has gone down, meaning you now buy less for each pound than you could.

Instructions

- 1
  Set aside any pound coins as these are the easiest to count up.
- 2
  Count up how many shillings you have and convert them into pounds. There are 20 shillings in every pound. It may be helpful to view the shilling as five pence in modern English money or a nickel in American terms.
- 3
  Calculate how many pennies you have and convert them into shillings and pounds. There are 12 pennies in every shilling.
- 4
  Find any Guinea coins or £5 notes. These are now worth a lot more due to coin collecting and the gold value of guinea coins. Guineas were worth £1 and 1 shilling, while £5 notes were very rare amongst anyone apart from the wealthy.
- 5
  Separate any coins worth less than one penny. These are either farthings, worth ¼ of a penny, or halfpennies, worth ½ a penny. These are next to worthless today as they were mass produced and not of much value to collectors.
- 6
  Convert your old English money. Money from 1970, the last year shillings were used, is worth about a tenth of what money is as of January 2011, so to convert from 1970's money to today's you must divide by ten to calculate its current value.

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