When did "old money" Farthings stop being used?
Would prices in the 1960's be in "full Pence", or could they end in e.g. "two farthings/half a Penny"?
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farthings
Ceased to be legal tender on 31 Dec 1960.
After then the smallest the halfpenny was a substantial size coin (appx 5g and 1" diameter) and therefore usable easily rather than lost in the pocket.. To my recollection pricing for some small items had halfpennies for a while beyond then until shopkeepers could get away with rounding up!(.ie when we had forgotten about the rounding up from farthings to halfpennies)
I had to look it up (I'm not _that_ old)
According to Wikipedia -
The British farthing (derived from the Anglo-Saxon feorthing, a fourthling or fourth part) was a British coin, a quarter of a penny ( 1⁄960 of a pound sterling). It ceased to be struck after 1956 and was demonitised after 31 December 1960.
Prices like tuppence ha'penny
Prices like tuppence ha'penny (never halfpenny) were common when I was little. Decimalisation killed what little usage there was, when we converted from pence to p (new pence was too much of a mouthful). The farthing was a small bronze coin much the same size as the current 5p and as said earlier, easy to lose. Prices would be one or three farthings I think, or ha'penny. And I recall three ha'pence rather than a penny ha'penny the the two might have been interchangeable.
Pronunciation
We say it like hayp-knee. Northern readers may disagree.
Half pennies were an important part of pricing, particularly at low values. At 8, I was getting a bus ride to school for 1 1/2 old pennies. Sometimes I would get off a stage earlier and walk the last half mile, but that gave me a ha'penny to spend on sweets!
Penny
I'm a little confused
I was born in December of 1960, and as others have pointed out here, the farthing ceased to be legal tender in 1960. I remember coming into possession of farthings before decimalisation. I wonder how.
What fun, happy memories!
The halfpenny piece is one of those interesting items. It was often written as a single word, as I did in my start sentence, but was nearly always pronounced "haypenny" or even "ha'p'nny". The farthing was always only used as a single or triple, that is "three farthings" or "farthing" where in the latter the word "one" was never spoken (or written) but was always implied. They survived in secret unusable hoards for long after they officially could no longer be used. Incidentally a few contributors my age will remember that the "tail" had a wren depicted (the smallest (relatively) common garden bird in UK, though the rare goldcrest and firecrest are smaller). I do not remember pre-war farthings, but Wikipedia states that the transition from Britannia to the Wren took place in 1936, so all the George VI and Elizabeth II farthings will have the wren. Bear in mind, when setting work in the british pre-decimal days, prices were always expressed in value of pounds, shillings, pence and fractional pence, allowing the user to select coins to total the requested price. There was only one exception, related usually to auctions where bids were (and often still are, particularly I believe of race-horses) where prices would be in guineas - the equivalent of one pound and one shilling, or 21 shillings, the shilling part being alleged to be the saleroom's commission.
I've bored you all long enough!
Old money
I am of a certain age where I whilst I don't remember the old system, I am familiar with the pre-decimal coins that remained but at a different value e.g. the old sixpence was worth 2 ½p. Even today, I'll have a conversation where money/savings can be alluded to in terms of the old system, such as tuppence ha'penny for small amounts or 2 and six for larger amounts.
Also while most goods are now sold in metric measures (litres, metres) people are still used to pints, gallons, feet and inches. When asking for a conversion to the old measurement, you might hear someone ask "what's that in old money?"
Another way the old system has stayed with us is in bingo calls - 76 may be called as "7 and 6, was she worth it?" referring to the cost of a marriage licence
Farthings
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