Pound sterling
From Marteau
The currency of England, Wales and Ireland, after the Union 1707 also of Scotland, regularly devided into:
| 1 guinea | = | 21 shillings, 6 pence in 1700 |
| 1 pound / £ | = | 20 shillings |
| 1 crown | = | 5 shillings |
| 1 shilling / s. | = | 12 pence |
| 1 penny / d. | = | 4 farthings |
| 1 farthing |
The value of the pound was supposedly the equivalent of 240 pence minted of sterling silver (containing 92.5% Silver, 7.5% copper), the pennyweight (dwt) originally of 24 grains (each of 0.0648 g). The weight of the penny had, however, been gradually redefined:
| year | weight in grains | weight in g | Remark |
| 8th century to c. 991 | 24 | 1.5552 | traditional weight |
| c. 991 to c. 1275 | 22.5 | 1.458 | traditional weight |
| c. 1275 | 22 | 1.4256 | |
| 1343 | 20.3 | 1.31544 | |
| 1345 | 20.15 | 1.30572 | |
| 1346 | 20 | 1.296 | |
| 1351 | 18 | 1.1664 | |
| 1412 | 15 | 0.972 | |
| 1464 | 12 | 0.7776 | |
| 1526 | 10.7 | 0.69336 | |
| 1544 | 10 | 0.648 | |
| 1552 | 8 | 0.5184 | 11 oz 1 dwt fineness |
| 1560 | 8 | 0.5184 | sterling fineness |
| 1601 | 7.8 | 0.50544 | |
| 1816 | 7.27 | 0.471096 |
Source: Feavearyear, Appendix 3-2, p. 439
Pound coins were not minted before the 19th century – the silver equivalent of the pound circulated in shillings and crowns. The fixing of the pound against the penny became questionable with the introduction of the guinea gold coin, first issued on February 6th, 1663 (1662 Old Style) with the value of £1 sterling silver. The guinea soon gained a higher value than the silver based pound sterling due to the fast devaluation of the silver coinage in the 1680s and 1690s. After rising to 30s in 1694 new silver coins had to fix the guinea at 21s 6d in 1696. The value of the guinea was redefinied in 1717 as the equivalent of 21s – decisions which moved the pound as a unit of account under the gold standard officially declared, however, only at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1821 after the "souvereign" had successfully replaced the guinea as a £1 gold coin.
Literature
- Feavearyear, Albert, The Pound Sterling: A History of English Money, Second Edition (Oxford: University Press/ London: Clarendon Press, 1963).
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