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You certainly couldn't fail to notice that something was happening to the currency as the massive publicity campaign swung into action as D-Day approached. The colourful posters and newspaper advertisements were simple and effective and most people carried a pocket-sized conversion chart. Everywhere you looked you could see some reminder that D-Day was on its way.
Of course the change-over to new coins and a new system affected everyone but it also had an enormous effect on business. Each shop till had to be replaced because they worked in the old system. Telephone boxes had to have new slots. So too did parking, gas and electricity meters. Business documents that itemised goods sold in �sd columns had to be reprinted. The list is endless.
A trip to the shops with the new decimal coins in your pocket was quite exciting, similar to shopping in a foreign country today, with the prospect of using unfamiliar coins. For a short while everything was marked-up in both systems and people could check to see if the shop-keeper had got it right.
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To help avoid confusion with the old coins it had been decided that the new ones should look very different from those they were to replace. The Royal Mint Advisory Committee selected Arnold Machin's graceful portrait of the Queen for the obverse and Christopher Ironside's six reverse designs, traditional in subject but very modern in design.
Originally, the change-over period was to take a year but we became used to decimal coinage so quickly that the old coinage disappeared almost overnight. But for those of us who can remember pre-decimal days it is with great fondness for a system with a history spanning over one thousand years.
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| Crown Copyright Royal Mint |
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