A Quid, A 'Bob' And A Tanner.

I was close.

Next time instead of guessing I should look it up.....LOL

I think 'Guinea' should be mentionned here! A guinea ended it's days as a £1/1/- coin (one pound and one shilling, or 21 shillings depending how you prefer to phrase it), however, it had originally started out as a £1 coin in the 1660s. The coin's value was floated on the market until about 1717 and thus fluctuated often, it has been worth anywhere between 20/- and 30/-! (i.e £1 and £1/10/-) which is quite a variance. It was set at 21/- in the 1710s to prevent confusion caused by fluctuations. The name of the coin was officially the 20 shilling peice but as you can imagine it didn't stay as a £1 coin for long and thus they soon got named as those coins from Guinea in Africa (which is where the gold came from), hence they became guineas, unofficially at first. By their demise in 1816 everyone knew them as guineas.

Also note;

Dollar = 5/-
Half Dollar = 2/6d

I reckon you've stumped the non-Aussies there, BM. Those are peculiarly Australian slang words for our pre-decimal coins, popularised in the years during and after World War I.

A "trey" was a threepence. Obvious derivation: just say "three" in a funny accent.

A "zac" was a sixpence. I have no idea why. Debate rages. Possibly saying "six" in a really, really funny accent.

A "deener" was a shilling. Debate rages here too. I suspect it's something linked with the old French denomination "denier", in turn derived fromt the Roman "denarius". But that all seems a bit too sophisticated for a bunch of Aussie diggers, though. [:p]

The other Aussie money-slang that comes to mind was the "brick" - a £10 note, our highest denomination in regular circulation. Why a "brick"? Well, it's red, and rectangular...

There was much talk in the coin magazines in the leadup to decimal conversion in 1966, about "losing the old coins with the old nicknames" and "what new nicknames will we give to the new coins". In the end, we seem to have given up on nicknames: 20 cents is 20 cents, end of story.

Yes Sap I think you are right....had 'em stumped.

Looks like some need some training on the aussie "darkside"....lol

Now let's see ... Ha'penny (halfpenny-1/2d.) penny(1d.) trey(threepence-3d.) zack (sixpence-6d.) bob (shilling-1'-). two-bob(2'-).

And Notes .... Ten-bob(ten shillings) quid(1 pound) fiver / tenner (both self explanatory); just that tenner sometimes called "brick", due to dimensions and colour - another "no-brainer"!

And a guinea was one pound and one shilling. But from the mid 40's this terminology was considered a bit quaint and un-necessary, so rarely used by ordinary people.

Now this is strictly street-corner recollection ... (sold newspapers after school, as often we did); and when papers leapt from 2d. to 3d. over night we immediately lost our keep-the-penny-change from shiny throopence.

Still haven't recovered ..!

quote goodasgold
fiver / tenner (both self explanatory); just that tenner sometimes called "brick", due to dimensions and colour - another "no-brainer"!

sorry goodasgold ther are some yanks here who stll are going huh,what LOL

Thanks goodasgold, I did not know all that Thank you ,but it was a bit of humor to you..

well we over hear speak american style english which aldo depends on what part of the country you are in to what type southern , northern,new england ,new york, anso on an then street launguage