40 years of 'decimal' currency

Milarky

'D' Day was 15th February 1971

According to Wikipedia, efforts at decimal currency reform (along with metrication) go back to the first half of 19th century.

Whatever next, votes for women?

Loughton_Monkey

I remember it well. And, boy, were we ripped off. No surprise that inflation hit the upper 20%'s later on, although I suspect there were other reasons.

I seem to have in mind Mars Bars at 4d. That's 1.67 New Pence. But they went up 20% to 2p of course. This was nothing compared to the tooth fairy, who, I understand, had been happily paying 6d was considered mean to leave anything other than 'silver' and hence had to leave 5 pence - giving a staggering 100% inflation rate. Don't know what Merv would think of that these days.

As to votes for women, then that actually preceded decimalisation by about 8 days. 7th February 1971 the vote was given (in Switzerland) to women.

talexuser

I remember it too, and it was a great excuse for a rip off in increased prices, everyone doing the weekly shopping said so.

I wonder if the VAT increase will have a similar effect? If not upping prices to increase profit, using excuse to decrease the amount in the box etc?

At least 5% inflation is better than 17% inflation, but maybe not when base is 0.5%....:(

Old_Slaphead

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I seem to have in mind Mars Bars at 4d.

Mars bars 4d ? Round our way they were a tanner and went up to 3p (still +20%).

Mikeyorks

Milarky wrote: »

'D' Day was 15th February 1971

Chosen because the 15th Feb is, allegedly, the quietest financial date in the calendar!

So a small team of us spent the weekend + a couple more days converting thousands of accounting records manually. And striking a balance in this 'new' currency. At that time there were few operational accounting systems which had been computerised ..... and most of them Heath Robinson was envious of. 'Punched cards' was still a favourite for mass data storage .... and dropping a box of them a hanging offence.

Fast forward 30 years to late 2001. And - with Euro cash imminent in the first 12 countries - Treasury decided that every Govt Dept with a public facing financial system should have a Euro conversion plan.

Net result ......... an average 2 years required to make the transition! That is a factor of 100 times longer than most took to do it manually 30 years ago. And despite the added bonus that this conversion will be from a 'decimalised' to a similar base. The Banking sector similarly comes in around the 2 year mark for full conversion.

A lot of the issues in conversion are those beloved of and 'made up' .... by the experts, who will benefit most from the extra work.. But it will put the 'Year 2000' costs / timeframes into the shade.