Just for the fun of it...

[wlewisiii]

I had an empty row at the bottom of the last page of my shillings, after the 1970 proof coins. So I decided it would be fun to put together some similar sized and valued coins (in terms of buying power then) from earlier in the 20th century. Plus the 5 pence proof from 1990 is in silver as well because that was the last year they were made the same size as the classic shilling and the shilling was finally being demonitized 20 years after decimal day.

The other coins are:

1930 US Standing Liberty Quarter
1917 French 1 Franc
1930 Irish 1 Shilling
1917 Italian 1 Lira
1909 Imperial Germany 1 Mark

It’s an interesting comparison of economies that the franc, mark & lira are all a single unit of their basic currency, the US is one fourth of a dollar and the shilling was one twentieth of a pound sterling. Though their economy was weaker, Ireland at that time pegged the Punt to the Pound. The US was far stronger than all of mainland Europe but the UK ruled over all until WWI shattered everyone but the US.

[Peckris 2]

Two of those ARE shillings - the 5p and the Irish shilling.

[wlewisiii]

Yup. The Irish shilling is a very cool coin and I was quite pleased to get the 1990 silver proof 5p.