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Fivepenny Sixpences. Of various proposals for decimalization, the most practical is the solution already adopted by South Africa and recommended for Australia and New Zealand. The pound note would be scrapped, and the 10-shilling note become the standard denomination, while shillings would represent ten penny units like the dime; the present sixpenny bit would thus represent 5 pence and be equivalent to the U.S. nickel, while the half crown would correspond to a quarter. Britons are divided over nomenclature for the new 10-shilling bill. Some want to call it a "Britannia," others a "noble"—after an English coin that was worth 6 shillings and 8 pence in 1461 and, mercifully, was scrapped. No one has yet suggested calling it a dollar.
*The currency really got unmanageable around 770, when Offa, King of Mercia, decided to issue pennies weighing the equivalent of "32 wheat corns in the midst of the ear." Since the pound sterling was based on a pound of silver, this later came out to 240 pence to the pound.