10 July 1967.

[Motu]

40 years ago we changed to decimal currency - from the ten bob note to the dollar note,from a quid to a 2 dollar note,from a bob to 10 cents,from half a crown to fifty cents...from the huge penny to the tiny one cent piece.

How many of you learned to work out change in pounds shillings and pence - then threw it all out the window and moved to the ''new'' money?

[yungatart]

I'm not quite old enough to have learned to give change in the old currency, but do remember getting my "decimal currency" certificate at primary school.. I got 10 out 10 and recall trying to teach my elderly grandmother that everything hadn't doubled in price overnight... a difficult task I might add!

[Hitcher]

I don't remember the "old money", largely because as a kid growing up on a central Taranaki dairy farm, we hardly ever saw or used cash. It wasn't as though there was a dairy at the end of the road where we could go to buy sweets or smokes.

But I do remember the kits that came around to schools, with actual-size plastic versions of the new coins but no picture of the Queen on the back, just a big number corresponding to the value of that particular coin.

[crashe]

Oh dear, thanks Motu, a few of us are about to show our ages... :whistle:

Yep I remember having to learn it all at school...... and have always remembered 10th July 1967. The young ones look at you strangely when you talk out old money, as all they have ever known is what we have today....


I still have a few coins from that era.....

Yep I have the $1 and $2 paper money and the old $5 and the $10 special note put out. Oh and heaps of 1 and 2 cents coins.

Plus I have a few coins around for when we do the next change over to the new coins.

[vifferman]

How many of you leant to work out change in pounds shillings and pence - then threw it all out the window and moved to the ''new'' money?
Yup.
Don't miss it though, as the 'LSD' was a bugger to learn and keep track of.
I'm almost completely metricatedified, apart from (sometimes) horsepower and miles-per-gallon.

[crashe]

Yup.
Don't miss it though, as the 'LSD' was a bugger to learn and keep track of.
I'm almost completely metricatedified, apart from (sometimes) horsepower and miles-per-gallon.


Give me Yards, feet and inches any time... damn hard to convert it over...
and those weight thingees.... damn it when a baby was born you were told in lbs and ozs... damn if I know what they mean when they talk in grams...

I guess some of us are happy to still stay with the old ways...

[MSTRS]

Sure do remember that. In fact, I vaguely remember using ha'pennies AND farthings.

[sAsLEX]

I'm almost completely metricatedified, apart from (sometimes) horsepower and miles-per-gallon.

how tall are you?

[MSTRS]

The "new" notes were the same colour as the notes they replaced, as in, the 10 shilling note was brown so was the $1 etc

[Ixion]

Damn stupid idea. And it was easier to work things out in pounds shillings and pence. Score rule and dozen rule, easy as.

[Motu]

I still like to think in mpg and HP,although the latest metric HP is almost the same as good old HP.I also like to think in ft and inches for peoples height - I think mm is too ''exact'',where as breaking it down into two seperate measurements helps.Like 5 foot places it at ''that'' height,and then so many inches adds the rest....I don't need to know someones height to the exact mm.

In 1967 I was 13 and in my first year of highschool,and had lost my father that Xmas,so a kinda stressfull time for me.My grandmother seemed to have the most trouble converting over,and we had to help her a lot.My mother didn't seem to have much bother with decimal currency - it was small change in her life...a new solo mum working full time with two teenage boys,she just powered through crap like that.

In later years I came across a guy who picked up the old pennies - he drove all over the country in a flat top truck,the pennies in open topped 44 gal drums.He used to laugh that he'd pull up at a hotel for the night,and no one knew he was carrying thousands of dollars on his truck in open top drums.

[sels1]

Damn stupid idea. And it was easier to work things out in pounds shillings and pence. Score rule and dozen rule, easy as.


Ha ha....NOT! I just wished they had gone metric a decade earlier so I wouldnt have ever had to learn the imperial system.

Oh, and I was a "Dollar Scholar" - won a $1 in a BNZ bank account.

[Pixie]

Damn stupid idea. And it was easier to work things out in pounds shillings and pence. Score rule and dozen rule, easy as.
You must have been born with twelve fingers and twenty toes

[Ixion]

Not at all.

Which is easier - 12 items at 3/8d or 12 items at 37 cents.

For Imperial, you just apply the dozen rule and instantly get £2/4/0d . For the metric one you must do a tricky mental multiplication to get $4.40. The Imperial is much easier, no multiplication at all.

[SPman]

Shit! My first job when I left school - working in the Burroughs decimal conversion plant in Khyber Pass Road, converting accounting machines to decimal. Back when they were "proper" and mechanical - none of this new fangled elctronic bizzo!
I can still flick from imperial to metric in money, measurements, areas, speeds....most things really.....sometimes in the middle of a mental calculation, which can get confusing...........

100mph is still faster than 161kph!

[Paul in NZ]

I think we have a decimal currency tea towel at home some place with the conversion rates on it. Vicki picked it up some place on one of her fossicking trips. i reckoned it was a classic and we should have framed it but she said i was mad so we just use it...

No vision that woman (probably just as well considering who she married)

Paul N

Jeeze - I just started humming the wee jingle that went with it... One cent, two cent stay in lione for DC day..... etc etc

[Finn]

Finally a post that makes me feel young. I wasn't even born then.

Thanks gramps.

[Beemer]

I used to scrounge pennies off people and I remember being taken to a big toy shop in Hastings with a bag full of pennies and other small denomination coins and paying for my purchase a coin at a time... I was only five... and I bought a teddy bear!

Ah, the memories! I also remember Wahine Day the following year - we were living in Lower Hutt by then and our school was flooded and subsequently closed for a week or so.

As for you Finn, you young whippersnapper!

[Maha]

Started school at the end of July 67'...... remember having saved a jar of pennys that i couldn't spend but other than that it was just another day.

[terbang]

Got my "Dollar Scholar" certificate in 1967 (age 7). Thank god because I hated doing the pounds shillings and pence thing during our arithmetic lessons at school.

[Motu]

Knew knew I was getting old when I came across adults who were born after men walked on the moon! That one will be coming up soon too - we tuned in our radios during class,man,that was a big event!

[yungatart]

Knew knew I was getting old when I came across adults who were born after men walked on the moon! That one will be coming up soon too - we tuned in our radios during class,man,that was a big event!
We got to watch it on TV during class, a real novelty as most of us didn't have tv at that stage, ohh, the excitement...
Beemer, what school did you go to, Mstrs was at Belmont school, it was closed too, he watched the Wahine go down from his Mum's kitchen window..

[Ixion]

One of the great disappointments of my life, that.

When man landed on the moon , I (and so many of my generation) predicted with perfect confidence that within our lifetimes we would be zipping around in personal spacecraft.

Today, the moon. In a couple of years, we'll knock off Mars and Venus. Finish off the solar system by the end of the century - easy, how far off that remote day seemed. And after that - the stars!

We had a optimism and confidence in man that has been lost today. 'Twas joy to be alive, and to be young, very bliss. We gloried in the day, and the promise of a bright and confident morrow.

Rhysling's words summed it up for us then:



Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet ---


I wonder where it all went wrong. And why we are STILL stuck on this damn planet.

[Hitcher]

Knew knew I was getting old when I came across adults who were born after men walked on the moon! That one will be coming up soon too - we tuned in our radios during class,man,that was a big event!
It still is a big event, particularly knowing now what we didn't know then, what computers do now that they didn't then. And they did it all in imperial measurement using slide rules (remember those?) to no more than four decimal places. Three guys in a pressurised dome atop a couple of thousand tonnes of high explosive pointing skywards, all of the components of which had been sourced from the least-cost supplier. And it worked! God bless you, Werner von Braun.

[Paul in NZ]

One of the great disappointments of my life, that.

When man landed on the moon , I (and so many of my generation) predicted with perfect confidence that within our lifetimes we would be zipping around in personal spacecraft.
EDIT
I wonder where it all went wrong. And why we are STILL stuck on this damn planet.

Bah! While that is slightly disappointing - the worst was beong told buy my maths teacher (after being told next years exam would allow calculators) telling me the biggest challange i would face in my life time would be how to fill in my leisure time 'cos everyone was predicting 3 day weeks etc etc... HAH! Whats with that!!!

Still waiting and i work longer than I ever bloody did.. Grrrrr!

Paul N

[mstriumph]

..........................................
I wonder where it all went wrong. And why we are STILL stuck on this damn planet.

.............. if you don't like it here then go back where u came from ...... :blip:

[Maha]

men walked on the moon! That one will be coming up soon too - we tuned in our radios during class,man,that was a big event!
July 21st 1969 ..... does anyone remember a rocket capsual (dont know if it was off Apollo 11) going from school to school around NZ a few years after?
Or was i short changed......dam that decimal thing.....:wait:

[mstriumph]

if it was working why did they mess with it i say ....
... just gives rise to a bunch of confused people and posts like this one :wait:

personally i find it much more interesting that the distance from the tip of King Henry 1's nose to the end of his outstretched arm was a yard than i do that a meter is one ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator .....

bloody french ... mutter mutter mutter .....never can leave ANYTHING alone ..... mutter mutter .....

[scumdog]

Decimal currency was a rip-off!!

4 bits of chewing gum for two pennies i.e. 24 bits for a shilling which equaled 10 cents

NOW when decimal currency came in it was 4 bits of chewing gum for two CENTS which meant you only got 20 bits for a shilling (10 cents)

Bloody Gubmint!!

[mstriumph]

i blame the french .......

[Virago]

40 years ago we changed to decimal currency.........
Not really wanting to piss on the party, but surely 10 July 1967 was 39 years ago???????

Or has that been converted to decimal and rounded up?:doobey:

[rfc85]

July 21st 1969 ..... does anyone remember a rocket capsual (dont know if it was off Apollo 11) going from school to school around NZ a few years after?
Or was i short changed......dam that decimal thing.....:wait:
Yep remember that,big day,we went ot town to see it

[Motu]

Not really wanting to piss on the party, but surely 10 July 1967 was 39 years ago???????

Or has that been converted to decimal and rounded up?:doobey:

We are faster than you,don't get left behind.

[Virago]

We are faster than you,don't get left behind.
Fuck me, all I did was blink my eyes and I lost a year.........

[Skyryder]

I was working at the Chatau Tongararrero (shit spelling I know but this is a quickie post) when they changed over. I always associate the changover with the Beach Boys Good Vibrations. Use to play that a lot on the juke box. Is it realy forty years......................???? Been some good vibes in that time. As I'm getting older I need more oiling for the vibes to work.

Shit I can remember milk in billys and the milkman selling whitebaite.

Skyryder

[scumdog]

I was working at the Chatau Tongararrero (shit spelling I know but this is a quickie post) when they changed over. I always associate the changover with the Beach Boys Good Vibrations. Use to play that a lot on the juke box. Is it realy forty years......................???? Been some good vibes in that time. As I'm getting older I need more oiling for the vibes to work.

Shit I can remember milk in billys and the milkman selling whitebaite.

Skyryder

And ninepence to go to the flics (about 7.5 cents)

And petrol at 3/6 a GALLON (works out at less than 9 cents a litre)

[Hitcher]

Not really wanting to piss on the party, but surely 10 July 1967 was 39 years ago???????

Or has that been converted to decimal and rounded up?
By my maths, next year marks the 40th anniversary of dismal guernsey.

[Hitcher]

and the milkman selling whitebaite.
At the Chateau Tongariro? Shit, that place has gone downhill!

[SPman]

Is it realy forty years......................????
Skyryder
No - see above


Unless I had a longer sleep this morning than I thought......

[Scorpygirl]

I think we have a decimal currency tea towel at home some place with the conversion rates on it. Vicki picked it up some place on one of her fossicking trips. i reckoned it was a classic and we should have framed it but she said i was mad so we just use it...



I still have a decimal currency hanky. It's a bit worse for wear but you can still see the coins. My Dad was a bank manager in Coromandel at the time and although I was only young I still remember it and the changes Dad had to make to the banking systems.

[doc]

At least it was only a $1.00 (10 shillings.120 pence whatever) to fill the ole Commando up two proper gallons too. It was the start of the present capitalism problem of your money doubled overnight and you don't have to save for anything nowdays . No interest for two years no credit history no problem, beneficiery, no problem, bad history, no problem, free phone just sign up to this plan you can't afford but you will look cool. Yep it was a step forward alright we certainly owe more but who owns us really.... I'm an stupid old fart but I still pay cash for what I want....

[Edbear]

Yup! CAn remember my Mum saying that the Universe operated on "Base 12" and Decimal was inferior in Mathematics. Not sure how right she was, but I can remember preferring the "old money" and taking a bit of time to adjust.:rockon:

[Big Dave]

40 years ago


My lot went before you - 1966 - I remember sixpence for a paddlepop clearly.

[Lias]

Bunch of old farts :-)

PS: If you want to relive the hideous imperial system you can always move to yankland.

[merv]

Big Dave wasn't it 14th of February nineteen sixty six for you Aussies as the jingle went? - damn they didn't worry about Valentines day then.

Here is the jingle:

In come the dollars and in come the cents
to replace the pounds, the shillings and the pence.
Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix
on the 14th of February 1966.

Clink go the cents folks
clink, clink, clink. Changeover day is closer than you think.
Learn the value of the coins and the way that they appear
and things will be much smoother when the decimal point appears.

In come the dollars and in come the cents
to replace the pounds, the shillings and the pence.
Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix
on the 14th of February 1966.

Dollar Bill Decimal Currency Jingle sung to the tune of 'Click go the Shears'

[DougB]

Back in 1966 I lost a bet for five pounds. I left the area before the question we bet on was decided. Last year I met the bet winner again. Who loudly exclamed (with a big smile on his face) "I want my five pounds!!"

I took out my wallet to obligue "Na not that crap money the bet was for five pounds".

I went to a coin collector and the cheapest five pound note cost me $22. He recieved the note gracefully and I was forgiven.

[Big Dave]

Bunch of old farts :-)

PS: If you want to relive the hideous imperial system you can always move to yankland.

Ohh no - Metric is much nicer to live with.

[Big Dave]

Yes Merv - you got it - they used to make us sing that at primary school too - how embarassment.

[What?]

Aaah, Decimal Day.

Imagine a five-year-old, 3 months into learning some basic maths, being told that 1 penny is equal to 2 cents, and 6 pence is equal to 5 cents. No fuggin wonder we can subtract 1967 from 2006 and come up with 40!

[Oscar]

40 years ago we changed to decimal currency - from the ten bob note to the dollar note,from a quid to a 2 dollar note,from a bob to 10 cents,from half a crown to fifty cents...from the huge penny to the tiny one cent piece.

How many of you learned to work out change in pounds shillings and pence - then threw it all out the window and moved to the ''new'' money?


I was a flash bastid with decimal currency at school.
Australia did the change over in 1966 when I started school in Sydney, so when we moved here in 1967, I was the Primer 4 expert...