Hattix t1_j6edfpa wrote
Another interesting thing about British coins is that they're designed to be weighed.
Any specific value in any mix of 1p and 2p will weigh the same, as will mixes of 5p and 10p, 20p and 50p.
The old £1 was half the weight of the old (and briefly used) £2, but today's £1 and £2 don't pair their weights to their value anymore.
The current 1p is also the lowest value British coin which has ever circulated, it being around 70% of the value of the 1/2p when it was withdrawn in 1984.
Gathorall t1_j6f4qgv wrote
And that's in a holdover from when their worth was based on being of valuable metals, which was why old currency conversions seemed kinda arbitrary, manufacturing and handling determined the size and coins would then be worth whatever was the exchange rate of the material.
Hattix t1_j6f7bla wrote
It was kept around because it was how banks counted coinage you deposited. You'd have little plastic money bags (remember those?) with 1p/2p 5p/10p "NO MIXED COIN" written on them, the person at the desk (or Post Office) would just weigh it to save having to count it all out!
I remember my dad explaining to me in the 1980s that ones and twos didn't count as mixed coin after I'd separated them all out into different bags!
funkmachine7 t1_j6gqmva wrote
The old Carolingian monetary system of 1:20:240 and 1 being a pound mass of silver was the base for most of europes coinage.
The conversions where based on getting back to that pound of silver an so effected by purity an weight of the two coins.
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