Why do we use pounds and pence as our currency?

The pound coin in our pockets is the most recent unit of British money. Before that we had a pound note. And before the note there was another coin known as a gold sovereign. The present coin may look a lot smaller than the others, but it has a long history.

The idea of using a pound as a unit of money goes back more than a thousand years. The old Roman pound of pure silver was still used as money then. This was divided into 240 silver pennies. Until 1971 the British pound was also divided into 240 pennies. That was the year in which our currency changed to decimal coinage, though there are still, a few shopkeepers who have used to change with the times. Since then we have had 100 pennies in the pound. The Romans have not been forgotten in our money even today. The ‘f’ sign we use for the pound stands for the Latin word ‘libra’, meaning ‘a pound’.

The Anglo-Saxons used silver pennies. Copper pennies came in two hundred years ago. They lasted for forty years before being replaced by bronze pennies.

 

Picture Credit : Google

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