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What will bother Britons at least as much as figuring out how much things cost is that when they finally do, they will discover that prices have been upped. Public lavatories, for example, will cost 1 p. (2.4¢) instead of 1d. (1¢) after Feb. 15. Coffee machines will cost 50% more, launderettes 30% more. And while many shops were rounding prices up to the nearest new penny—and beyond—the Ministry of Defense admitted that war veterans' pensions have been "rounded down" to the nearest new penny. While businesses figured out how best to pay for their changeover expenses, the government estimated that the total cost of decimalization, including the training of staff, replacement and conversion of machinery, would be about $300 million.
If confusion seems certain for a while, some Britons took comfort last week in the fact that they still have some peculiarities left. Even while saying goodbye to quids and bobs and thrup'ny bits and all that, they still have chains, rods, gills, pecks and chaldrons. M (for Metric) Day will not come before 1975.
* First mention of the penny, the oldest English coin, occurred in the laws of the West Saxon King Ine, who ruled between 688 and 726. The first pennies were struck in silver about 770, and some time after that it was discovered that 240 coins could be minted from a pound of silver. The shilling came along in 1504, its name a derivation of the Old English word settling, meaning cutting or slicing.