Donaldson R F Pre-Decimal Currency (£sd) Converter
Convert old British “£sd” money — pounds, shillings and pence — to decimal pounds, and back again.
Nominal conversion, not purchasing power. This tool converts between the two ways the same amount of money has been written — £/s/d (240 pence to the pound, used until decimalisation on 15 February 1971) and decimal £ (100 pence to the pound, used since). It does not adjust for inflation: £1 in 1960 is shown here as £1.00 today, not as what that £1 could buy at the time. Denomination values: Royal Mint Museum and Royal Mint (see sources below, checked 7 October 2026).
Old money → decimal
Decimal → old money
How the old system worked
Before decimalisation, £1 was made up of 20 shillings (s), and each shilling was made up of 12 pence (d) — 240 pence to the pound, instead of today’s 100. A sum such as £1 2s 6d means 1 pound, 2 shillings and 6 pence, which comes to 1.125 in decimal pounds.
Named coins and notes
Source: The Royal Mint Museum, “What’s that in old money?” (farthing to £1) and The Royal Mint, “The story of the guinea” (guinea = 21 shillings). Checked 7 October 2026.