£sd

Uncommon card · No. 113130

£sd (occasionally written Lsd) is the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies once common throughout Europe. The abbreviation originates from the Latin currency denominations librae, solidi, and denarii. Under this system, there were 12 denarii in a solidus and 20 solidi (or 240 denarii) in a libra. In the countries of the (former) British Empire, these were called pounds, shillings, and pence (pence being the plural of penny), with 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. Although the names originated from popular coins in the classical Roman Empire, their definitions and the ratios between them were introduced and imposed across Western Europe by Carolingian Emperor Charlemagne. King Offa of Mercia adopted the Frankish silver standard of librae, solidi, and denarii into Britain in the late 8th century. The £sd system was the standard across much of the European continent for over a thousand years, until the decimalisations of the 18th and 19th centuries. The United Kingdom...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Photograph by Clem Rutter, Rochester, Kent. (www.clemrutter.net)., CC BY-SA 3.0