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The term £sd (pron. LSD) was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies of many countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland, and many Commonwealth countries.
Meaning "pounds, shillings and pence" the term originated from the Latin "librae, solidi, denarii" hence the use of the hatched "L" (£) for pounds and "d" for pence. Similar systems based on Roman coinage were also used elsewhere, for example for the division of the Livre tournois in France.
Writing conventions
In writing, there were several conventions for representing amounts of money in pounds, shillings and pence:
£2.3s.6d. (two pounds, three shillings and six [pence])
1/- (one shilling)
11d. (elevenpence)
2/6 (two shillings and six pence, usually pronounced as "two-and-six" or "half a crown")
2/- (two shillings, or one florin)
4s.3d. ("four-and-threepence")
5s. (five shillings)
14-8-2 (fourteen pounds, eight shillings and tuppence--in columns of figures).
Halfpennies and farthings (quarter of a penny) were represented by the appropriate symbol after the whole pence.
Sometimes prices of luxury goods and furniture were expressed by merchants in whole numbers of guineas, even though the guinea coin had not been in use for over 150 years. A guinea was twenty-one shillings.
See also
- Decimal Day for decimalisation in the UK and Ireland
- Decimalisation, for international decimalisation information.