30 Years Since The Demise Of The Half Penny

I myself have 2 British half-pennies, one from 1862 and one from 1921. I myself didn't realize that they stopped making these in 1984; what an informative article. Thanks :)

Yoshirules - the coins you describe are the old pre-decimal halfpennies, which were demonetised on 01 August 1969. The coin demonetised at the end of 1984 was the decimal halfpenny - which had a nominal face value of 2.4 times the old halfpenny, although it was much smaller.

I think what hastened the demise of the halfpenny, as well as inflation and unpopularity, was the rapid development of electronic cash registers and accounting machines in the 1980s - the odd halfpenny caused problems with these, whereas back in the 1970s most cash registers were still the old mechanical type and most small businesses did all their accounts by hand using good old double-entry book-keeping.

Yes - I remember little sweets called Fizzers costing a halfpenny a pack in 1971! And back then it took only 6 halfpennies to buy one first-class stamp - now you would need 126, if they were still in circulation!

Hi DatR - the chunky Kit Kats weren't around in the 1970s. I can't help you with the Lucozade, but I remember a can of Coke being around seven and a half pence, and Mars Bars were 4p in 1973 and then briefly went down a halfpenny as purchase tax was replaced by VAT.

Fizzers are tiny:
http://www.greatbritishsweets.co.uk...s-2200-p.asp