The Isle of Man, along with most other countries uses the metric currency system.. The currency unit , whether it is the Pound, Dollar or Euro or many others , is divided into 100 parts .....pennies, cents or whatever.....[. and the word cent, of course comes from the word centum , the Latin for a hundred ].....and is very straight forward these days, ......but it was never always that easy !
Up to 1971, the UK, including the Isle of Man used pounds , shillings and pence.. [ £ .s .d ] .a hang over from the days of Robin Hood, I think! Ha ha! It was a complete nightmare, well ....looking back it was, though at the time we seemed to manage OK. Even one penny was divided into fractions..... halves and quarters!! Briefly, there were 4 farthings in a penny...or 2 in a ha'penny.....12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound.. Not too bad so far, but hang on. The coins were a farthing, a ha'penny, a penny , there were two three penny coins , a sixpence, a shilling , a florin , a half a crown and occasionally crowns were issued on special occasions. Then of course, the coins had nicknames. The smaller of the 'thrupenny' bits was a joey, the sixpence was a tanner, the shilling was a bob, the florin was a two bob bit [ 24 pennies ] and the half crown [30 pennies ] was known as a' half a dollar'. Ha ha! it gets worse. There was 240 pennies in a pound. [ which was known as a quid ] and if you had a pocketful of these massive copper coins you would need a wheel barrow to cart them about . Oh, and I forgot about the Guinea which was £1 and1 shilling . Even simple sums were difficult. I tried to do one recently and I got stuck.....yet when I worked part time as a barman [ a long time ago ]I used to add these up in my head. Still, thank God for the Metric system !
The Isle of Man now has its own currency, similar to the UK, but can only be used over here and not in England......but we'll take their money, never fear !
Picture is of a Manx £5 note...........approx $10
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