C is for Currency

Not sure of the reason, perhaps it is the spare time I have had recently due to my tendon injury, or perhaps it is just another transient phase I am embarking on.

But I have started collecting English coins that are differently marked than their respective currency valued candidates.

So far, I have a different 1p and 2p, 5p, 10p, 2op and several different 50p's. This quirk could have been sparked by a visit to the Perth Mint during my trip to Australia but I remain unconvinced - although I did bring home a minted coin.

Next time you walk up the road to your local boozer with all the change which seems to reproduce inside your pocket (£1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p) remember it was not always this way.

Depending on how far we want to go back here, from the "One Penny" coin estimated to have been in use from the year 757 we get a fair idea of how our currency has progressed.

Just to feed our wandering minds, let's go further back.

If we think about it most of us would guess before a standard form of currency was used as "money", things like cattle and crops were used as a bargaining tool. It is estimated this sort of thing was occurring from around 9-6,000 BC.

Lydia, in Asia Minor are said to have made the first coins around 640BC and they became metallic shortly afterwards and China was the first to use notes as currency Est. 806AD.

I suppose it seems a logic step : "Person A says to Person B : I want X of yours. Person B says fine, if you give me Y what you have." But to come from swapping whatever you can find around to around 180 differing currencies in the world is fairly incredible to me.

Back to old English then, we can go from the farthing, to a groat, crown, guinea and so on. And coins I have never heard of including "mite" "angel" and "noble".

England changed to decimal coinage on 15 February 1971. Before this, the pound was 240 pence rather than 100. So £1 = 20 shillings and 1 shilling = 12 pence.

Coins in circulation, prior to 1971, included the half-crown, Florin (2 shillings), shilling, sixpence, threepence, penny and halfpenny.

In terms of coinage, the pre-decimal sixpence (2.5p) was withdrawn in 1980, shilling (5p) in 1990, two shilling (10p) 1993 and the farthing around 1980.

The half-penny was demonetised in the 1980's as it was deemed too small to be useful and the £1 coin started to replace the £1 banknote from 1983.

Just when everything appeared settled along came the Euro. I remember going on a few holidays before this was introduced in 2002.

Take a moment here to look back and remember some of the old currencies such as : the Greek Drachma, the Spanish Peseta, the French Franc and Deutsche Mark.

Also, how different currency is valued in differing countries. The comparisons in the wages of men and woman in the Western World, between that world and Africa - Fair Trade does its bit but there are some fundamental issues created years ago as inflation in one part of the world grows and others suffer recession.

And we now have the Euro in financial crisis - Greece and Portugal especially, Italy and Spain rumoured to be not holding up to well either. Even without the Euro, England and USA are really struggling financially with the numbers of debt mentioned staggering to someone like me.

It might be time for China to set up to the plate but of course any kind of co-operation needs to be right for them. But if it is, they will certainly become the global super power most already think they are.

Who knows what the future holds then from a simple exchange of cattle thousands of years ago, to the "Mite" and now we are talking about billions. Are we in danger again of tipping ourselves over the edge financially? Some will say we have already done that.

SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_bank_notes_and_coins
http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk/coins.html
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/amser/chrono1.html
http://www.predecimal.com/key_dates.htm
http://woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/moneyold.htm