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Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 9:40 am
by jma
All sorts of things contributed to the raging inflation of the 70's and early 80's eg Harold Wilson's devaluation comment about the value of the £ in your pocket or purse was unwinding, but I'm sure that the price hikes associated directly with decimalisation played a big part because the cost-of-living measured in everyday items went through the roof: if you don't know that, say 5p = a shilling rather than 5d, you know that at the end of the week, you are short of money. I think a lot of this is subconscious: somebody might know the arithmetic but not bother.

One of the alternatives for decimalisation would have been to retain the value of the (old) penny and make the £ = 100d. 8/4d or eight shillings and four (old) pence. That would have had the effect of putting a brake on price increases because some thing that had previously been a quid would have been £2-40: same real price but it sounds a rip-off. Another thing at that time of fixed exchange rates would have meant that £1 = $1 and neither the Treasury nor UK financiers liked that. That's all history because from being £1 = $4 pre-war when half-a-crown was sometimes referred to as half a dollar, we are now nearly at parity.

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 10:35 am
by volvojack
Pre decimalisation bottled beer was ofton sold in Pubs at example 11 pence Halfpenny. but when we did go decimal the halfpenny seemed to disappear, i believe it was discontinued in the early 1980s and by that time it was a joke coin

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 11:40 am
by jma
What value is there now in coins under 5p? Or for that matter 10p? They might as well do the real decimal thing ie units of 10 and scrap every coin below 10p. They'll need to be quick because already you can't get much for 20p.

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 1:11 pm
by volvojack
Pre Decimal coinage was a small work of art right up from the Farthing ( Robin or Boadicia ) through the copper coinage onto the silver sixpence ( not forgetting the Threepenny Bit with its 12 sides) Shilling, Two Bob and the lovely Half Crown.
The new coinage was, and is still very ordinary and i believe it was the Bank Of Englands ploy to make it so that people would not treasure it so much.
I also think they got rid of the £1 Note and gave us that crapppy coin instead for the same reason.

Rant Over.

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 1:58 pm
by jma
The only time I can remember anything with a farthing in the price was when a large white loaf went up from 6½d to 6¾d probably around 1953 (?) I have a pretty clear memory of my mum coppering up to send me to the shop for a loaf and going with nine ha'pennies - 4½d - and being relieved when Eric the shopkeeper didn't notice one was an Irish coin. That must have been earlier still. Strange that nearly 70 years on, I can remember the name of the man who ran the shop.

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 3:07 pm
by Leodian
jma wrote:The only time I can remember anything with a farthing in the price was when a large white loaf went up from 6½d to 6¾d probably around 1953 (?) I have a pretty clear memory of my mum coppering up to send me to the shop for a loaf and going with nine ha'pennies - 4½d - and being relieved when Eric the shopkeeper didn't notice one was an Irish coin. That must have been earlier still. Strange that nearly 70 years on, I can remember the name of the man who ran the shop.
Hi jma :).

As a child in the late 1940s (perhaps into the very early 1950s) I used to like to eat some freshly baked tiny Hovis-type loaves for 1/4d (farthing) each, bought at (if I recall correctly) at Daddy Clayton's on Osmondthorpe Lane.

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 3:49 pm
by buffaloskinner
I used to pay my tram fare with the old silver three pence piece instead of a sixpence as they were very similar. It worked most times as well saving me a few bob.
To any old tram conductors left ............ sorry.

Re: Beer prices

Posted: Wed 08 Mar, 2017 4:42 pm
by volvojack
[quote="buffaloskinner"]I used to pay my tram fare with the old silver three pence piece instead of a sixpence as they were very similar. It worked most times as well saving me a few bob.
To any old tram conductors left ............ sorry.


That made me laugh.

Your mention of the old silver Three penny Piece reminds me how they soon disappeared when folks realised the silver content was more than the silver sixpence still being issued and also the rumour that it was to be withdrawn.