[C19fan]

I collect those coins, from the Victorian era. Penny-farthing is the name people gave to the first bicycles, the one with the massive front wheel and tiny rear wheel. The massive front wheel was the “penny” part and the tiny rear wheel was the “farthing”.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I know what a penny-farthing is. I was just making snark.

How many sovereigns, florins, tuppence, and ha’pennies have you?

[a fool in paradise]

£.s.d.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

They weren't called penny farthing until they were almost obsolete. They were called high wheels then, after the safety bicycle was invented, the ordinary.

There is a new show called David Jason's Great British Inventions that has a segment on these bicycles featuring one of the last high wheel builders in the world.

[kearnyirish2]

They only changed from them in 1971; they aren’t rare. I remember the Crown coins with Churchill on them.

[hanamizu]

I have a coronation set from Elizabeth II. Included are a farthing (1/4d), half-penny (1/2d), penny (1 d), threepence (3d), sixpence 6d), an English shilling (12d= 1/), a Scottish shilling, a florin (2/), a half crown (2 1/2 /), and a crown (5/) which would 1/4 £. To make things even more confusing for tourists, the English gave nicknames to many of their coins as well as having a semi-fictional “guinea” which was worth £1 1/. This was used in prices for expensive things to make them appear less expensive. If something was advertised as costing 200 guineas, it really cost £220.

By Elizabeth’s time the threepence coins and above were copper-nicklel instead of silver—the cost of WWII. Originally English silver coins were sterling (92.5%) silver, but after WWI they were reduced to 50% silver.