Happy birthday To New Pence. 50 years ago today was D-Day or decimal day when the old pounds, shillings and pence was replaced by new pence and pounds.
No longer would there be 240 pennies to a pound, or 12 pennies to a Shilling, or 20 shillings to the pound. There was some commonality though. 5 new pence was the same value as 1 shilling and 2 shillings became 10 new pence. A pound was still a pound though.
To aid the transition a new 1/2 penny was introduced to help replace the old 6 pence, which under decimal would be worth 2 and a 1/2 new pence.
The new coins started being seen in 1968 starting with the 50 new pence (10 shillings) and 10 new pence, 2 shillings. These were supplemented with 1/2, 1, 2 and 5 new pence coins. The old shillings and florins would be used in circulation as 5p or 10p for many years though, only coming out of circulation when those coins were changed to the smaller variety we are now used to.
