Currency Exchange Rates

Date: 01/02/99 at 00:12:44
From: Millie
Subject: Money

Do you know how much half a crown, a crown, and a shilling are worth 
in American money?

Date: 01/02/99 at 12:19:30
From: Doctor Rick
Subject: Re: Money

Hi, Millie, welcome to Ask Dr. Math!

There are two things we need to know to answer this question. 

The first question is, how are crowns and shillings related to the 
British pound (the main unit of currency in Great Britain)? Crowns and 
shillings aren't used any more. Here is a site that tells about the 
changes made in British currency almost 30 years ago:

   http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/dec.html   

This page tells more about the way it used to be:

   http://www.britishadventures.com/britmony.htm   

There were 12 pence (pennies) in a shilling and 20 shillings in a 
pound. A crown was 5 shillings, so there would be 4 crowns in a pound, 
and 8 half-crowns in a pound.

The second queston is, what is the exchange rate between British pounds 
and dollars? This can change from day to day, depending on how well 
each country's economy is doing. One place I found that gives this 
information on the Internet is the Universal Currency Converter:

   http://www.xe.net/currency/   

As of December 31, 1998, one pound was 1.6628 American dollars. 
This would make a shilling (if it still existed) equal to 1.6628 / 
20 dollars, which works out to 8.314 cents. A crown would be 5 times 
this, or 41.57 cents. A half-crown would be 20.785 cents.

Since crowns and shillings are really old units of currency, you might 
want to know what the exchange rate was some time in the past. A pound 
used to be worth quite a bit more. Here is a Web site with this 
information:

   http://www.globalfindata.com/tbpound.htm   

- Doctor Rick, The Math Forum
  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/