You know you’re getting old when….
You ask an over 30 year old colleague “Is an old shilling roughly equivalent to 5p or 10p?” and they say they have no idea what you’re talking about! I may as well have been talking about doubloons, farthings or guineas for all he knew.
A shilling coin
The shilling was often known as a ‘bob’ as in ‘Have you got a couple of bob you can lend me?’. The origin of this term is uncertain, although a ‘bobe’ was a French one-and-a-half denier coin of the 14th Century (the Oxford English Dictionary considers its survival in this way to be unlikely). There is also a possible connection with Sir Robert (Bob) Walpole; it is speculation that the ‘King’s shilling’ given to Army recruits may be the link here.
Anyway, the answer is 5p, not that there’s anyone alive who cares apart from me! 
I think my Grandad might still care
What’s a doubloon? And how many Złoty do you get for 10 of them? Just wondering.
yellerbelly
Friday, 19 June, 2009 at 8:23 pm
L.s.d. Good old Librae, solidi, and denarii
adthelad
Friday, 19 June, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I once had a cat whose five kittens I named Guinea, Shilling, Sterling, Farthing, Ha’penny.
VioletSky
Saturday, 20 June, 2009 at 1:58 am
Click here for more…
These new five pee coins
Don’t like them, they’re too fiddly
Much prefer the old shilling
At least that was really worth a bob
(From Frank Sinatra sings Banal British Working Class Platitudes)
Michael Dembinski
Saturday, 20 June, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Lynn Truss describes a cartoon she likes in her book ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ saying ‘…(it)shows a row of ten Roman soldiers, one of them prone on the ground, with the cheerful caption (from a survivor of the cull), “Hey, this decimation isn’t as bad as they say it is!”‘
adthelad
Thursday, 25 June, 2009 at 8:37 pm