1971 £.s.d. to Decimal converter.

[bagerap]

This just came in, but I can't recall seeing anything like it at the time. Most "converters" were written on the back of fag packets as I remember.

[Peckris 2]

No, I never saw those, or even an advert for them. Possibly rare?

[Rob]

The design is quite intricate and a fair amount of work has gone into it implying a relatively upmarket source, so what does HME stand for?

Her Majesty's Exchequer? Harrod's Money Exchange? Any magazines in 1971 with the initials? Thoughts anyone?

[blakeyboy]

New one on me too!

[bagerap]

On WorldofCoins,  Malcolm Johnson has come up with the answer:

"HME - HORDERN, MASON & EDWARDS 
Cincinnati began as a small machine shop in the downtown area of the city of the same name in Ohio, USA, in the mid 1860s. After World War II it took over the Birmingham (UK) press manufacturers Hordern, Mason & Edwards, of Vesey Street, Birmingham, (HME) who had been approached by the Royal Mint in the early 1960s to prepare a specialist modern coining press suitable for the quantities of UK coins needed when the country changed over to a decimal system; the Mint estimated that 150 additional presses alone would be needed. HME designed the Coinmaster, a forged steel press with a novel rotary feed plate, which was subsequently sold to many mints the world over. 

In 1969 the parent company name changed to Cincinnati Milacron, reflecting the rapid development of plastics and injection moulding in the company’s markets; the name was changed again to Milacron Inc in 1998"
 

Thanks Mal

[ozjohn]

When Australia converted it seemed so much simpler. 10/-   =    $1,   5/-    50 cent,   2/-   =   20 cent,,   1/-  =  10 cent.   6d  =  5 cent. One new silver coin and  1 & 2 cent bronze coins and the old silver 3d piece,  and  the bronze penny and halfpenny coins abandoned.  Compared with the UK conversion 50p' 20p (horrible little coin introduced later)  1/2, 1 & 2 newpenny  bronze coins. Changing to 10/- =  $1 preserved  the numerical relationship between the coins which made the whole process simpler. I suppose the reason for preserving the GBP was the reason for keeping it but you have to wonder if it was worth all the confusion it caused 

 

 

[Rob]

27 minutes ago, ozjohn said:

When Australia converted it seemed so much simpler. 10/-   =    $1,   5/-    50 cent,   2/-   =   20 cent,,   1/-  =  10 cent.   6d  =  5 cent. One new silver coin and  1 & 2 cent bronze coins and the old silver 3d piece,  and  the bronze penny and halfpenny coins abandoned.  Compared with the UK conversion 50p' 20p (horrible little coin introduced later)  1/2, 1 & 2 newpenny  bronze coins. Changing to 10/- =  $1 preserved  the numerical relationship between the coins which made the whole process simpler. I suppose the reason for preserving the GBP was the reason for keeping it but you have to wonder if it was worth all the confusion it caused

In the days when mental arithmetic was part of daily life, the changeover wasn't that difficult. A florin was still a tenth of a pound, 120+ years after it was first introduced and the continued use of existing 'silver' coins made things quite easy. With the old penny demonetised, there wasn't even the need to use your 2.4 times table. For small change, all you needed was an approximation to know you were in the right ballpark - an ability which people appear to be sadly lacking today, cf. D Abbott MP.

[Ashtonian]

Hi Bagerap,

Have a look at the Fitzqilliam Museum Collection http://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/159289  The HME was a company in Wakefield HME Minting Ltd. Nice find I do not know how rare it is.

[blakeyboy]

3 hours ago, Rob said:

In the days when mental arithmetic was part of daily life, the changeover wasn't that difficult. A florin was still a tenth of a pound, 120+ years after it was first introduced and the continued use of existing 'silver' coins made things quite easy. With the old penny demonetised, there wasn't even the need to use your 2.4 times table. For small change, all you needed was an approximation to know you were in the right ballpark - an ability which people appear to be sadly lacking today, cf. D Abbott MP.

Absolutely!!!!!!!

I used to have to multiply and divide £ s d when at primary school- we were using base 20, 12, 6, 4, and 2 every day.

Ask any kid to do that now.

Seven out of four people can't do fractions....

[ozjohn]

On 6/11/2019 at 4:01 PM, Rob said:

In the days when mental arithmetic was part of daily life, the changeover wasn't that difficult. A florin was still a tenth of a pound, 120+ years after it was first introduced and the continued use of existing 'silver' coins made things quite easy. With the old penny demonetised, there wasn't even the need to use your 2.4 times table. For small change, all you needed was an approximation to know you were in the right ballpark - an ability which people appear to be sadly lacking today, cf. D Abbott MP.

I wasn't implying it was difficult only making 10/- the currency unit was an easier option. With regard to long division and multiplication of imperial quantities. This had the bonus of improving the ability to carry out complex calculations improving the mathematical level of everyone as you had to be able to perform these calculations to survive. In addition handling complex relationships between quantities ie 12 pennies = 1/-, 12" = 1 foot etc. introduced the importance of understanding units which is essential for higher learning in maths, physics etc. A good example was when a new employees from high school  started where I worked and were asked to fill out a time sheet they  couldn't do it correctly as they did not have the skills to understand the relationships between the units of days, hour and minutes and could only handle units based on 10, 100, 1000 etc.

As an aside I can remember even into the early 1970s up market department stores still advertised prices in guineas and used car lots used pounds to make their prices seem lower which was several years after decimalization in 1966. 

Edited June 12, 2019 by ozjohn
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