Talk:Pound sterling

UKP is a non-standard abbreviation.

For what, UK Penny or UK Pound? If the former, this should go with the official abbreviation and not with the information on pence and shillings.

It's often used as an abbreviation for UK Pound. It's wrong, and should not be used. -- Arwel 10:38, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Correct, the pound sterling is GBP and a penny (ie 1/100th of a pound sterling) is GBX. I would guess the confusion comes from our informal country name (and TLD) being UK but our ISO 3166-1 code being GB -- OwenBlacker 21:52, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

I'm interested... can you provide references for the existence of GBX? Marnanel

Yeah, see a Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=GBX+%22currency+code%22). It's not a part of ISO 4217 but seems to be a frequent addition (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ISO+4217%22+gbx) and is the standard abbreviation used for prices on the London Stock Exchange, which are all listed in pennies, presumably due to some phobia over decimal points :o) -- OwenBlacker 23:12, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Interesting. I've never seen that before. However, looking at your references, it's clear that GBX (and USX) are additional to ISO 4217, and their usage seems to be restricted to a few markets, so I'd be against giving them undue prominence. -- Arwel 23:30, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'd agree, I only mentioned it in reference to GBP; not worth putting in the main content, I'd suggest -- OwenBlacker 23:32, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

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Also, see Talk:Decimal Day for comments about merging content spread across several pages regarding British decimalisation -- OwenBlacker 21:52, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 Merger 2 Pound Sterling/Pound sterling 3 value of the pound 4 Legal tender 5 £ symbol 6 Empire and Commonwealth use of pound

Merger

Surely this should be merged with British coin One Pound, any opinions? Boffy b 23:16, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

Yes. Surely not. The one pound coin didn't exist until 1983 if memory serves me right. Sterling is about the currency, whilst British coin One Pound is about the artefact. Mintguy (T)

Fair enough, I've linked them together becuase I recently spent a while confused on one looking for the other. Boffy b

I'm suprised we don't have articles about the individual notes, as we do about the coinage. No mention of Isaac Newton and his Toblerone. Mintguy (T)

Same here, I was going to start one on the One Pound note, I have scanned one, but should I in some way deface it first? eg: Writing SPECIMIN or similar? Boffy b

I certainly don't think the articles should be merged — one is about the curency itself, the other is about the coin. I see no reason why there shouldn't be articles about the notes too. The Bank of England's website (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk) suggests it's illegal to reproduce British banknotes (even ones that are no longer valid), but [1] (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/design.htm) and [2] (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/repoappform.htm) might tell you more. — OwenBlacker 14:11, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. The problem with articles about notes is that the Bank of England controls their reproduction rather severely, and it's rather hard to meaningfully describe banknotes without pictures! We did have pictures of the Series D (1970s) £1 and £5 notes on the Bank of England article but someone took them down as we didn't have BoE permission. -- Arwel 15:33, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pound Sterling/Pound sterling

Should this not really be at Ps and this page redirect there? Rich Farmbrough 12:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have listed Pound sterling on Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion so that Pound Sterling can be moved to Pound sterling. A move does not work right now because "Pound sterling" has history. Indefatigable 16:00, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think you got it the wrong way round. As currencies are proper nouns both words should be capitalised. What we have now is the equivalent of Charles dickens. Wincoote 17:23, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

value of the pound

Any idea on what 10 pounds in 1668 is worth today? I'm writing the article on Mumbai which was leased for the figure back then. Nichalp 19:27, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Legal tender

SPICe have quite a good briefing paper on this - (PDF) (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/briefings-03/sb03-51.pdf). Among other things, "£1 worth of 1p coins is legal tender but £1.01 is not. £1 and £2 coins are legal tender in Scotland to unlimited amounts." (it's a weird system up here, but there you go - God only knows what the legal basis in NI is like). Shimgray 01:08, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm now delving into the Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia, and goodness it's weird. SPICe seem to be wrong; we're told that -

The quantities of coins which are legal tender are as follows:

1. gold coins are legal tender for payment of any amount, provided the coins do not fall below the minimum weight specified in the Coinage Act 1971, or in the proclamation under which they are made, as the least current weight;
2. the £1 coin is legal tender up to any amount;
3. cupro-nickel or silver coins of denominations of more than 10p are legal tender for payment of any amount not exceeding £10;
4. cupro-nickel or silver coins of denominations of not more than 10p are legal tender for payment of any amount not exceeding £5;
5. bronze coins are legal tender for payment of any amount not exceeding 20p.

However, this seems to be a bit out of date - it doesn't mention the £2 coin, except as regards "legal tender by proclamation" for oddities, and cites things like the 1980s commemorative £2 coins. Will investigate further; it's possible that when the £2 was declared legal tender they altered the criteria for what number of coins could be tendered at the same time, but I suspect it's more likely SPICe got it wrong. I don't know, them in their comfortable offices down at Holyrood, it's shocking... ;-)

One note, though - they later mention that:

The Bank of England is permitted to issue notes in denominations approved by the Treasury. These notes are legal tender in England and Wales and notes of less than £5 are legal tender in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is not affected by the replacement of the £1 note by the £1 coin.

So were the Bank of England to decide to issue a £1 (or £2?) note again - which is implausible, but not impossible - then it'd be legal tender in Scotland, thus confusing this whole matter even further. (Existing English £1 notes, of course, are withdrawn by the Bank and thus don't count). I think my head hurts, now. Shimgray 01:44, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking it might be best to remove this whole section. Misinformation keeps creeping in and there's a lot of information missing. The Royal Mint Site (http://www.royalmint.gov.uk/RoyalMint/web/site/Corporate/Home/Corp_faq.asp) has the correct amounts for legal tender of coinage. I could re-write the section, but the whole subject is already covered correctly and in detail here. --ascorbic 11:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

£ symbol

Does anyone know when the £ symbol came into use? Am I correct in thinking that it was formed by analogy from $ ? --Carl 11:10, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

No, it is much older than the $ symbol. It is simply an ornate letter L for 'libra' (Latin for pound). That dates back to the Roman libra or pound (hence lb for weight) and so a pound of silver.

It is comparatively recent in general use, though - until the last century or two, it was common to write "4000l." rather than "£4000" (similar to what would be written for a given number of shillings). Might be worth noting that, though not sure how to work it in. Shimgray 12:22, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Empire and Commonwealth use of pound

The article ought to mention Irish pound, Australian pound, New Zealand pound and suchforth, and when these (a) changed their names and decimalised or whatever, and also (b) when they de-pegged, and why. Morwen - Talk 15:47, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)