So, what’s this handsome piece of machinery?Anyone remember these?Photo from Gerry’s Twitter…Which was your favourite colour?Imagine… Not only white, but BRIGHT white. Who could ask for more?
Power to the People!
Another method was much more dangerous, jump leads bypassing the meter.
And then there was the powerful magnet slowing down the discs.
They are now made out of aluminium Niko…
“jump leads” (jumpers) wouldn’t work on most meters. You needed an inductive load in place on the jumpers otherwise it’d still spin the meter motor.
Magnets burned the motor out faster than drilling the meter glass/disc.
Then there were the morons who plugged electric fires into lighting circuits (they usually aren’t on the meter in bedsits). The amount of fires that caused wasn’t/isn’t funny….
Often, the guy who emptied them was the guy who had lived in the flat before he did a ‘runner’. He was unable actually to run with all those pennies in his pockets dragging his strides down towards his knees.
It is the electricity meter I remember. I think it was shillings they put in, and later, 50p coins. My mum and dad used so much electricity that the meter man got fed up coming out to empty it so we could put more money in that he took the lock off the box and mum emptied it herself. She handed over all the money to the man when he came on his regular round to empty the meters.
When we switched from coal to gas in 1972 it was 10p coins. After a while it was difficult to put another in, so out came a shoe and we banged away until we could get another 10p in and hoping the gasman would turn up and empty the meter.
Ford Edzell estate, named after Henry Ford’s son.
I remember gas meters well, heck, I have a vague recollection of seeing a lamplighter (Leerie) too.
Henry the Herald had a great day out that Sunday at Sumerlee, Dave had his Austin 7 Chummy there too.
There were two kinds of lamplighters. There were the ones that lit the street lights and the once that lit the lights in the closes. The former had much longer poles. The poles had a notch at the top so that the leerie could clip it to the gas knob to turn it on. Then they used the flame to ignite the gas.
The poles had a fuel which was called ‘carbide’. When the leerie finished their shift they would tip any remaining carbide into the gutter. Weans would scoop the powder into the palms of their hands and spit into it. This caused an exothermic reaction and we dared each other to see who could hold it in their hands for longest. It got pretty hot!
The two pics that mean the most to me are: the Triumph Herald – I had the soft-top version (which leaked like a swivel),regs no LYS 75E, which my darling wife and I drove all the way up to Gruniard Bay in 1974 with the wind in our hair (them were the days!); and Rowantree Fruit Gums which the doctor prescribed when I was about seven to provide extra glucose to correct a deficiency in my diet. Hey, I wasn’t complaining. I think she just liked me 😇
The big problem with the Vitesse was the turning circle, ’til you got used to it. You couldn’t move off on full lock. It was something like 25ft. I remember my uncle, showing off at speed, got the steering hard round and took a front tyre right off the rim.
I loved that car, you could get it into very tight parking spaces, and by god was it fast.
I think the French car you are thinking of is a Facel Vega. Most had big American V8 engines but there were smaller models. Also if I remember correctly the Edsel jad buttons on the steering wheel to change gear.
Thanks, Tris. I passed my test in 1967 in Paisley, driving a MacLeod School of Motoring Herald. VS was the identifying plate I think for Greenock and HS was Renfrewshire, or vice versa. Damn these disintegrating brain cells!
One other ‘anorak’ point, which Gerry might help me with, does the D in DXS represent 1963 or ‘64, I don’t remember when they started with letters in front of the XS?
The year specific plates relied on a suffix starting with A and progressing until they had to reverse it to a prefix in the early 80’s. and initial D in the 60’s reflected the progression of registration numbers rather that a year. I think it started with A in 1963 or 1964 – my 1963 car was OTS 361 without year suffix. I think that some of the Highland Counties had hardly progressed beyond two letter prefixes by then and AS and BS reg plates could still be seen in the late 50’s, early 60’s.
There were a couple of buses where I lived with plates AMS 7 and 8 (I think Stirlingshire) and I was told that Alexander’s had the first AMS registrations. If true, that gives Alan Sugar’s personal reg AMS 1 something of a heritage.
tris
Nothern Iroish plates had the I and the Z.
Anything yousee on a plate here with those are from NI.
They weren’t popular during the troubles as you could get the car destroyed if you parked in sensitive places.
tris
XS was indead a Paislig reg,Vs was Greenock and Hs was indead Renfrewshire.
In the main all the Scottish ones had an S, If S plus it was a County, if Something with the S,ie DS it was a Burgh.
Of course Glascu and Dun Eidean ,being much bigger,had multiple G and S letters.
SN was dumbartonshire later given to Dundee.
Still carries on with the latest series, SA to SG are WEST coast ,SF onwards are EAST coast.
Historic cars on original plates seem to come from Lanark and Aberdeen/Dundee areas, my view is that the farming communities held on to their cars locally registered.
Sutherland was still issuing NS and 4 numbers in 1963,ie NS7788, before being forced to issue the A suffix,ie ANS123A.
My car is on a Clackmannanshire plate SL,issued in 1929.
My memories of the meters ,putting in the bob coin, a shilling in old money, 2.5p.
The meter reader calling and the coins being counted,the bill calculated and the excess returned.
Wish I had access to the coins now,the pre47 ones had real silver in them,now worth much more as metal than their face value.
Gerry and I had a great day out meeting fellow car enthusiasts. Gerry’s car was built in 1959,mine in 1929,what progress in 30 years.
Do the posh auction houses in England still sell fabulously expansive things like fine art in “Guineas?” Although the Guinea had not been minted as a coin since 1816, the monetary unit continued in use denominated at 21 shillings. So the hammer price at a posh auction was in guineas, and you paid for it in pound sterling plus 1 part in 20. So in the decimalized pound sterling, the guinea is £1.05.
This is what Wiki says about it. (Not spending too much time in expensive places, I had no idea whether they still used guineas or not.)
Replacement by the pound
In the Great Recoinage of 1816, the guinea was replaced by the pound as the major unit of currency, and in coinage by the sovereign.
Even after the guinea coin ceased to circulate, the name guinea was long used to indicate the amount of 21 shillings (£1.05 in decimalised currency). The guinea had an aristocratic overtone, so professional fees, or prices of land, horses, art, bespoke tailoring, furniture, white goods and other “luxury” items were often quoted in guineas until a couple of years after decimalisation in 1971.[9] The guinea was used in a similar way in Australia until that country converted to decimal currency in 1966.
It is still quoted in the pricing and sale of livestock and racehorses at auction, at which the purchaser will pay in guineas but the seller will receive payment in an equal number of pounds. The difference (5p in each guinea) is traditionally the auctioneer’s commission (which thus, effectively, amounts to 5% on top of the sales price free from commission). Many major horse races in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia bear names ending in “1,000 Guineas” or “2,000 Guineas”, even though the nominal values of their purses today are much higher than the £1,050 or £2,100 suggested by their names.[10]
Not only posh auction houses, but I believe Rees Mogg Minor gets his pocket money in florins and groats, while Pater spends guineas each week on the finest snuff from the Spice Islands.
My sister still has one crumpled up into a wee gold case hanging on a charm bracelet. The trick was to have the “ten” showing. God help you if you tried to take it out to “borrow”it. Niko would probably have managed it.
I remember the ten bob note very well, Tris. I recall being sent to the shops and my Mum telling me, “Remember that’s a ten shilling note – make sure you get the right change”. Ten bob was a lot of money in those days. I always remember the signature on lots of Bank of England notes when I was a kid – L.K. O’Brien.
Bought a coffee and coke in a cafe in Nicosia in 1994 and the old woman serving gave me a glimpse of Cypriot folk memory – after giving the price in Cypriot currency, she grinned and said “Tain boab to you”in an accent which would have graced Still Game.
Also, am I right in thinking that the Herald had a separate chassis ? A pal once had a Standard Atlas van which I believed was on a Herald chassis – and with a Herald engine, was not exactly rapid. Heralds also had a phenomenally tight turning circle, handy for rapid u – turns when passengers least expected.
As I remember it, the Edsel was something of an embarrassment to Ford.
Tris,
The herald range were built on a chassis.
The Standard Atlas was on the similar chassis,strengthened to carry the heavier body.
The minister in Bonhill had one,a mobile home version, a caravanette,brand new,but that’s another story for a nicer day.
My great Uncle gave me a 10 bob note 1960 for my birthday, it was a Clydesdale bank one, it got me to open an account with the Clydesdale, the Scottish notes are nicer than the buther’s apron versions,but if anyone wants to give me their spare ones I’ll accept,not like our neighbours south of Hadrian’s wall.
The Triumph Spitfire was also built on the Herald Chassis, and was often referred to as ‘a Herald in drag’. It had much the same engine, but with twin carbs. The Vitesse referred to in earlier posts also had it’s sporty ‘in drag’ version…the GT6.
Notice the false promise. “I promise to pay the bearer ON DEMAND the sum of Ten Shillings”
This is a reference to the fact that Bank Notes are actually IOU’s and NOT real money. It is a a Debt instrument no different to an IOU from your nearest pal, only the credit rating is probably better. Though these days the credit rating is getting near worthless. It’s real money for me Gold N Silver.
Pound Sterling is in fact a reference to the old mint which was located in Stirling. Anglicised like everything else. We need to “take back control”.
Pound and Dollar are references to weights of Precious Metals in Troy ounces.
One of the first things we need to do on independence is to stack tonnes of Gold and Silver in the Central Bank under lock and key for the good people of this land.
A lot of the pre 47 coins were destroyed and made into diy rings because of the high silver content. You drilled a hole in the middle, put a bolt through secured by a nut then while slowly turning on an anvil hit it gently with a hammer till forged out to the desired width. You then gripped said bolt in lathe chuck and polished it to a mirror finish. Next step you bored it out using a lathe to the desired finger size and wore it proudly until you got bored with it.
If done properly you ended up with a ring which on the inside edge had perfectly preserved, both sides of the writing which had previously been on the outside edge of the coin, including the date.
Engineering factories in the 70s rang to the tap tapping of twa bob bits being converted into silver rings while the company work was temporarily put to the side. The whole fad must have lasted till the coin supply was depleted. At least a couple of months.
A shilling was 12 pence, 20 shillings were one pound. ( 12 times 20 = 240) So in the pre decimal era 12 divided by 240 equalled 20. Thus you are absolutely correct! I seem to remember a half p, but I may be completely drunk. Equally my arithmetic is pretty wonky too.
240d in a pound, 100 p in a pound. Thus a p = 2.4 d. So 5p ( 2.4 times 5 = 12d!) and 2.5p (2.4 times 2.5) equals 6d.
Hurrah! I should be promoted to Primary One.
I bloody hated pre=decimilisation! Although learning weights was even worse. 16 ounces – 1 lb, 14 lb = i stone some number of stones = one hundredwight and so on and so forth.
Don’t hide your light under a bushel, Conan – that rod for your back had to be a pole. I spent a lot of my time banished to the school yard, trying to inch my way back into favour. It was a waste of firkin time!
I may be havering, but I think there were half p’s in the post decimilisation era too. Talk me down!
I quite enjoy a lot of American woodworking sites on this internet thingy. They still stick to sixteenths as a unit of measurement. It drives me crazy.
Messing up imperial and metric units made at least one Mars exploration vehicle crash rather than land, IIRC.
—————
I used the word passé today. On one of my interminable Herald arguements. How weird is that?
It’s a lot more fun when a Mars lander doesn’t crash. This is the JPL control room in Pasadena, California, when the “Curiosity” rover landed on Mars in 2012. There’s a fifteen minute interval when you know it’s landed OR it’s crashed, but you don’t know which until the radio signal makes the 15 minute light speed trip to earth with the information.
The pictures got better. It can even take a selfie…….using a composite of images taken at various angles by a wide field camera on a long arm.
Doesn’t everyone read Voltaire in the original French text – it’s not a gargantuan text, after all. In fact, to be Candide, sorry candid, it’s the best in the best of all possible worlds, I’d say. or was it Dr. Pangloss who said that?
The farthings had a wren on them and the halfpenny had a ship.
In the mid sixties, I worked in a bank near the ‘carnivals’ at Aberdeen beach. The penny in the slot guys would bring in bags of pennies that they had weighed for £5. However, because the coins were worn they usually contained an extra 4 to 5 bob. But it was such a filthy job to count them we were allowed to keep the bonus.
I’ve often wondered about that when they weight bags of money, because bit by bit the coins must get lighter.
I remember being told about hos dirty money was and I didn’t think about it at the time, but you have no idea, do you, who has handled it, and where it’s been.
If that puts anyone off having money, can I propose that they send it to Munguin at Munguin Towers, where he will be happy to look after it for you.
He’s not fussed about how dirty it is as he gets me to count it for him.
I remember the ha’penny…it had a sailing boat on the reverse side if recall correctly.
I also remember the so-called “wooden thrupenny” (3d) and it’s posh pal the silver thupenny.
My granny used to save up silver thrupennies to put in a clootie dumpling.
Whit about “farthings”…they had a wee bird on the reverse, a wren I think.
I remember the tale in towns that had a high percentage of married quarters in them like Rosyth, if you saw a packet of OMO in the window, it was shorthand for Old Man Overseas…
Douglas…….Boiling clothes might work. And then there’s going down to the river and beating them with stones. Doesn’t seem like that would make them any cleaner though.
The Edsel Villager I think its called , great for 1950’s/60’s America , over here it would rust in a week . Pay as you gas , also remember pay as you go tv , with the 50p meters on the back of the tv . The Triumph I though was a Dolomite , before looking at the comments , really nice car . Friut gums mmmmm . love em . As for the OMO , white bright on a summers day , blinds everyone walking towards you . And finally the only man with more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei Keith Richards with Mick and Pet Clark the year was maybe 1965 .
Imagine watching the telly and right at the important bit…. blank. The meter wants another 50p!
Mick may have a face like a relief map of the Himalayas, but he still has the figure of a teenager… and they still tour. As indeed does Petula who is touring French Canada next month with a new album…; at 85.
A few items from this interesting group of comments:
The 1958-60 car named after Edsel Ford (Henry Ford’s son,) was an iconic failure. In America, it was called the “Edsel.” Was it marketed as the “Edzell” in the UK?
As for coins….”Not worth a brass farthing.”
There was a Farthing coin minted for 100 years from 1860 to 1960.
But for about 900 years, starting with the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as early as King Offa in 785, the English penny was a small silver coin weighing 1/240 of a pound sterling (less a bit to pay the “moneyer” who struck them.) For about 500 years, they were the only coins minted in England.
The thin hammer-struck pennies were sometimes cut in quarters to produce “fourthlings”…..Anglo-Saxon “feorthing.”
A penny from the reign of King Edgar I, tenth century. The old pennies were in the range of 15-20 mm diameter, so the quarter cut fourthlings were tiny pieces of silver.
The location of the Olympia in Paris caught my eye……”Boulevard des Capucines”
A Claude Monet painting by that name is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. I was looking at it a while back. The little balloons are very prominent, with bright paint applied impasto. Much more prominent on the canvas than in pictures I see. “Boulevard des Capucines” was displayed by Monet at the first impressionist exhibition in Paris in April, 1874. But there’s another picture by Monet of the same location by the same name that might have been the one at the historic exhibition. (Kansas City thinks it has the exhibition picture.)
I don;t think it was ever marketed here. It would have been wider than the roads!. So I think Edzell is a spelling error. We have a town called Edzell not far from here.
Boulevard des Capucines is a rather posh shopping street in Paris. I remember having to meet a mate there one time and arriving early. Wandering along looking in the shops, thinking about getting another pair of shoes, I can still remember the horror of finding that the average price of them was more than twice my monthly income!
Tris…..The Edsel was a great failure for Ford. That front grille work is iconic. A symbol of a great automotive mistake.
Sounds like Boulevard des Capucines is better for window shopping than actually buying. You’ve been traveling to Paris for a lot longer than I realized. 😉
The Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City says that they spent well over a million dollars for the Monet many decades ago. A bargain price even way back then for an historically important work that was at the very first impressionist exhibition in Paris. But it turns out that Monet painted two of them with the same title, so the one at the first exhibition is EITHER the one in Kansas City or the other one in Moscow.
Busy day today, just getting back on. I really like all our Yesterday’s blogs Tris, gets us away from politics a bit and reminiscing for the ole times and remembering things from the depths of our minds, hope you can keep them going
🙂
Are you asking Munguin for more dosh? Seems to be a few keen regular followers.
To answer your earlier question Yes, me and Dave both work at the Airport, ATC Air/Ground radio. Both have an interest in classic cars, and both fly light aircraft together.
Roll on Soppy Sunday, bit of relaxation then it’ll be back into a week of politics. Can things get any worse with this shambles of a government in Westminster?
Only time will tell.
Yes, Gerry. I’m going to keep them up becasue, as you say, they seem to be remarkably popular. I can’t remember how they started, but it seems it was a good idea.
No point ever in asking Munguin for money. He’s definitely tight flippered.
As I said, I’d no idea you and Dave were friends and colleagues.
Just away to do some Soppy Sundaying now.
My mum was just saying earlier today that she has never come across such an incompetent British government.
Everything they touch is broken. The latest thing is this magical electronic border that Davis is promising to sort the Irish problem. A FOI request showed that Davis’s team hasn’t even approached any companies to see if they can do it… and how much it will cost.
Silver coins have milled edges , when they were all silver it is said the shopkeepers would trim off a little piece and sell the pieces off as bullion, you needed access to lots of coins. Early coins are not round due to this redistribution of wealth.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
You get a lid from a boot polish
Tin take your sixpence as a
Template cut round and then
Put in meter .
When gas man comes round
Tot up the lid cut outs and if you Got the money pay up.
The good old days
When you could (or rather your parents ) pay for cash with sixpence and shillings
Pre Globalization and privatisation .
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I vaguely remember my granny had one when I was very little. I don;t remember what she put in though…
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Amazing the tricks you learn in Borstal.
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He he…
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Now I’m not saying I did this but someone I shared a flat* with did. It only worked with old 50p meters….
Go out and buy some plasticine – preferably sheets. Take your old 50p and press it into sheet repeatedly. Fill with water & freeze.
Now carefully drill a small hole at the bottom of the coin box.
About one in five of the frozen 50p “coins” would work. If you made them slightly thicker it’d be more likely to work.
Being an electrical/electronics student I considered this method of abstracting electricity crude 😉
* not really a shared flat, just bedsits on a top floor/attic tenement flat where the landlord made huge profits from coin meters in each room.
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Power to the People!
Another method was much more dangerous, jump leads bypassing the meter.
And then there was the powerful magnet slowing down the discs.
They are now made out of aluminium Niko…
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You all lead such dangerous lives.
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“jump leads” (jumpers) wouldn’t work on most meters. You needed an inductive load in place on the jumpers otherwise it’d still spin the meter motor.
Magnets burned the motor out faster than drilling the meter glass/disc.
Then there were the morons who plugged electric fires into lighting circuits (they usually aren’t on the meter in bedsits). The amount of fires that caused wasn’t/isn’t funny….
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And people sometimes tried (probably still try) to run electricity from the stair lighting in tenements.
Incredibly dangerous.
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He he…
Fiendishly cunning…
Crude but effective….
Munguin’s lips are sealed!
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I remember the gas meters. Indeed, I can remember putting the big brown pennies in them – 240 of them to £1.
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I’d not like to have been the guy who had to empty them, Alistair. They musta weighed a ton!
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Often, the guy who emptied them was the guy who had lived in the flat before he did a ‘runner’. He was unable actually to run with all those pennies in his pockets dragging his strides down towards his knees.
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LOL. still, he’d have hand change for the bus, Alisdair.
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It is the electricity meter I remember. I think it was shillings they put in, and later, 50p coins. My mum and dad used so much electricity that the meter man got fed up coming out to empty it so we could put more money in that he took the lock off the box and mum emptied it herself. She handed over all the money to the man when he came on his regular round to empty the meters.
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Wow that was trusting of them.
I doubt they would do that now.
These things still exist, don’t they? But you pay up front and put your card into the meter until it runs out.
And the electricity is more expensive that way.
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As usual Tris. The poor always pay more.
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Aye, Conan. They certainly do.
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When we switched from coal to gas in 1972 it was 10p coins. After a while it was difficult to put another in, so out came a shoe and we banged away until we could get another 10p in and hoping the gasman would turn up and empty the meter.
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What happened if he didn’t, Marcia?
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Thankfully he did. Then we had plenty to put back in.
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🙂 🙂
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Ford Edzell estate, named after Henry Ford’s son.
I remember gas meters well, heck, I have a vague recollection of seeing a lamplighter (Leerie) too.
Henry the Herald had a great day out that Sunday at Sumerlee, Dave had his Austin 7 Chummy there too.
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Oh, Petula Clark, Kieth Richards and Mick Jagger.
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Indeed. Any ideas where it was taken?
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Downtown?
🙂
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LOL. Yes, it probably was.
I was told it was in the Olympia in Paris. (Conan says otherwise though)
Blvd des Capucines.
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In a subway.
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As long as they weren’t sleeping in it…
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1965, at the Ideal Home exhibition of all places.
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Really?
I thought it was at the Paris Olympia…
What on earth were they all doing at the idea homes? I mean you’d have thought with their money they’d have already HAD ideal homes!
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Shopping?
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But what for?
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Ideals? Homes?
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Ah… yeah… silly old me.
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https://rocknroll.on-this-day.info/1965-01-26/20199.html/pictured-at-the-ideal-home-exhibition-1965/
I thought it a bit dodgy myself
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How odd… Oh well…
I hope they got a nice home.
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It was indeed an Edzell, Gerry.
I remember my gran talking about the leerie.
Give our best wishes to Henry the Herald, and tell him Munguin thanks him for the use of his photograph. 🙂
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There were two kinds of lamplighters. There were the ones that lit the street lights and the once that lit the lights in the closes. The former had much longer poles. The poles had a notch at the top so that the leerie could clip it to the gas knob to turn it on. Then they used the flame to ignite the gas.
The poles had a fuel which was called ‘carbide’. When the leerie finished their shift they would tip any remaining carbide into the gutter. Weans would scoop the powder into the palms of their hands and spit into it. This caused an exothermic reaction and we dared each other to see who could hold it in their hands for longest. It got pretty hot!
Thanks for stirring the memory!
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Thanks for the detail, Alisdair, and the lovely wee story about the bairns just being bairns.
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The two pics that mean the most to me are: the Triumph Herald – I had the soft-top version (which leaked like a swivel),regs no LYS 75E, which my darling wife and I drove all the way up to Gruniard Bay in 1974 with the wind in our hair (them were the days!); and Rowantree Fruit Gums which the doctor prescribed when I was about seven to provide extra glucose to correct a deficiency in my diet. Hey, I wasn’t complaining. I think she just liked me 😇
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He he…
There was anotehr car that looked just like the Herald. I think it was called something French.
But it had a 6 cylinder engine and went like the wind…
Any ideas.
What a nice doctor you had. Most of them would have prescribed glucose tablets.
I remember when they used to suggest Lucozade for that kind of thing. I expect they don’t now!
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Try a Triumph Vitesse, later ones were 2 litre 6 cylinders,truly flying machines,pity about the swing rear axle, bit of a handful on the corners.
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Vitesse…
They were quite fast. Light body for a 2 litre engine.
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The big problem with the Vitesse was the turning circle, ’til you got used to it. You couldn’t move off on full lock. It was something like 25ft. I remember my uncle, showing off at speed, got the steering hard round and took a front tyre right off the rim.
I loved that car, you could get it into very tight parking spaces, and by god was it fast.
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Power to weight ratio was good for speed, I’d say.
Nasty error taking the tyre off, but, in honestly it’s not something that you’d want to do every day…
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I think the French car you are thinking of is a Facel Vega. Most had big American V8 engines but there were smaller models. Also if I remember correctly the Edsel jad buttons on the steering wheel to change gear.
Really enjoying these posts.
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The historic posts seem to be going down well with Munguinites. I’m glad you enjoy them. 🙂
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triump vittesse
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I knew it was something French.
🙂
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I believe the Triumph Herald has Paisley plates (XS)
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Gerry will be able to tell you… It’s his.
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Thanks, Tris. I passed my test in 1967 in Paisley, driving a MacLeod School of Motoring Herald. VS was the identifying plate I think for Greenock and HS was Renfrewshire, or vice versa. Damn these disintegrating brain cells!
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He he, Grumpy. Were you 17 when you passed your test?
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Gosh, Tris, how did you know!
One other ‘anorak’ point, which Gerry might help me with, does the D in DXS represent 1963 or ‘64, I don’t remember when they started with letters in front of the XS?
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🙂
Seems it was 1963.
https://www.speedyreg.co.uk/history-of-number-plates
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The year specific plates relied on a suffix starting with A and progressing until they had to reverse it to a prefix in the early 80’s. and initial D in the 60’s reflected the progression of registration numbers rather that a year. I think it started with A in 1963 or 1964 – my 1963 car was OTS 361 without year suffix. I think that some of the Highland Counties had hardly progressed beyond two letter prefixes by then and AS and BS reg plates could still be seen in the late 50’s, early 60’s.
There were a couple of buses where I lived with plates AMS 7 and 8 (I think Stirlingshire) and I was told that Alexander’s had the first AMS registrations. If true, that gives Alan Sugar’s personal reg AMS 1 something of a heritage.
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They left some letters out didn’t they?
O and I becasue they could be confused with numbers, and there were no Zs either, although I’m not sure why.
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tris
Nothern Iroish plates had the I and the Z.
Anything yousee on a plate here with those are from NI.
They weren’t popular during the troubles as you could get the car destroyed if you parked in sensitive places.
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Ah thanks, Dave.
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Thanks, you youngsters and your internet searches, whilst we oldies use (fading) memories.
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LOL Grumpy.
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tris
XS was indead a Paislig reg,Vs was Greenock and Hs was indead Renfrewshire.
In the main all the Scottish ones had an S, If S plus it was a County, if Something with the S,ie DS it was a Burgh.
Of course Glascu and Dun Eidean ,being much bigger,had multiple G and S letters.
SN was dumbartonshire later given to Dundee.
Still carries on with the latest series, SA to SG are WEST coast ,SF onwards are EAST coast.
Historic cars on original plates seem to come from Lanark and Aberdeen/Dundee areas, my view is that the farming communities held on to their cars locally registered.
Sutherland was still issuing NS and 4 numbers in 1963,ie NS7788, before being forced to issue the A suffix,ie ANS123A.
My car is on a Clackmannanshire plate SL,issued in 1929.
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Crickey… you know your number plates there, Dave 🙂
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My memories of the meters ,putting in the bob coin, a shilling in old money, 2.5p.
The meter reader calling and the coins being counted,the bill calculated and the excess returned.
Wish I had access to the coins now,the pre47 ones had real silver in them,now worth much more as metal than their face value.
Gerry and I had a great day out meeting fellow car enthusiasts. Gerry’s car was built in 1959,mine in 1929,what progress in 30 years.
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Was a shilling not 5p and 6d was 2.5p?
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Aye, and a Florin was 2/-. But it was the new-fangled electricity meters that had the slot for them.
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Did they actually have coins that said “Florin” on them? Or was that a sort of nickname, like ‘tanner’ and ‘bob’?
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It was an early experiment in decimal coinage, being a tenth of a pound, but it got the name from a Dutch coin of similar size.
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Do the posh auction houses in England still sell fabulously expansive things like fine art in “Guineas?” Although the Guinea had not been minted as a coin since 1816, the monetary unit continued in use denominated at 21 shillings. So the hammer price at a posh auction was in guineas, and you paid for it in pound sterling plus 1 part in 20. So in the decimalized pound sterling, the guinea is £1.05.
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This is what Wiki says about it. (Not spending too much time in expensive places, I had no idea whether they still used guineas or not.)
Replacement by the pound
In the Great Recoinage of 1816, the guinea was replaced by the pound as the major unit of currency, and in coinage by the sovereign.
Even after the guinea coin ceased to circulate, the name guinea was long used to indicate the amount of 21 shillings (£1.05 in decimalised currency). The guinea had an aristocratic overtone, so professional fees, or prices of land, horses, art, bespoke tailoring, furniture, white goods and other “luxury” items were often quoted in guineas until a couple of years after decimalisation in 1971.[9] The guinea was used in a similar way in Australia until that country converted to decimal currency in 1966.
It is still quoted in the pricing and sale of livestock and racehorses at auction, at which the purchaser will pay in guineas but the seller will receive payment in an equal number of pounds. The difference (5p in each guinea) is traditionally the auctioneer’s commission (which thus, effectively, amounts to 5% on top of the sales price free from commission). Many major horse races in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia bear names ending in “1,000 Guineas” or “2,000 Guineas”, even though the nominal values of their purses today are much higher than the £1,050 or £2,100 suggested by their names.[10]
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Remember that Tris, when you buy your next racehorse. 😉
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It’s Munguin that buys racehorses, Danny.
😦
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I bought a share in a racehorse once Tris. Tescos own brand lasagne.
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Eek…
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Not only posh auction houses, but I believe Rees Mogg Minor gets his pocket money in florins and groats, while Pater spends guineas each week on the finest snuff from the Spice Islands.
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LOL. Sounds about right, Rupert.
And on a Saturday morning they all enjoy a nice Dunking of Witches.
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Posh indeed! 😉
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F33c92920-3207-11e8-b9ab-50675b2358e0.jpg?crop=2992%2C1683%2C963%2C185&resize=685
You’ve no idea just HOW posh, Danny
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Oh for a snowball!
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Yes, they were marked “One Florin” I’ll see if I can look one out and send a photo. I’ve got a bag of old coins somewhere around the house.
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Great. Thank you, Gerry.
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Yes you’re correct ,senior moment,a shilling was converted to 5p,florins at 10p.
Allpre 47 silver coins had silver in them,the hauf croon.
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Remember them?
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My sister still has one crumpled up into a wee gold case hanging on a charm bracelet. The trick was to have the “ten” showing. God help you if you tried to take it out to “borrow”it. Niko would probably have managed it.
I did say “crumpled” not folded, didn’t I?
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Did Scottish banks issue them, or were they all blessed with that woman’s head?
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I couldn’t tell you Tris, a ten shilling note was wealth beyond the dreams of avarice to me at the time.
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🙂
On Munguin’s wages, it still is to me!
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I remember the ten bob note very well, Tris. I recall being sent to the shops and my Mum telling me, “Remember that’s a ten shilling note – make sure you get the right change”. Ten bob was a lot of money in those days. I always remember the signature on lots of Bank of England notes when I was a kid – L.K. O’Brien.
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Amazing memory, andi. Strange the things you hold on to.
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Not so much hold on to in my case, Tris – more like clinging to the wreckage!
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Ahhh I somehow doubt that mate.
You’re a bit too fast witted for that to apply to you.
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Thanks, Tris. When it comes to wit, most people say I’m half-way there.
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Not unreasonably, I’m sure 🙂
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Bought a coffee and coke in a cafe in Nicosia in 1994 and the old woman serving gave me a glimpse of Cypriot folk memory – after giving the price in Cypriot currency, she grinned and said “Tain boab to you”in an accent which would have graced Still Game.
Also, am I right in thinking that the Herald had a separate chassis ? A pal once had a Standard Atlas van which I believed was on a Herald chassis – and with a Herald engine, was not exactly rapid. Heralds also had a phenomenally tight turning circle, handy for rapid u – turns when passengers least expected.
As I remember it, the Edsel was something of an embarrassment to Ford.
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Coffee and coke… tain boab…? Oh, those were the days.
I dunno about the Herald. That’s a question for one of the experts… Dave or Gerry?
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Tris,
The herald range were built on a chassis.
The Standard Atlas was on the similar chassis,strengthened to carry the heavier body.
The minister in Bonhill had one,a mobile home version, a caravanette,brand new,but that’s another story for a nicer day.
My great Uncle gave me a 10 bob note 1960 for my birthday, it was a Clydesdale bank one, it got me to open an account with the Clydesdale, the Scottish notes are nicer than the buther’s apron versions,but if anyone wants to give me their spare ones I’ll accept,not like our neighbours south of Hadrian’s wall.
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Ah nice one. Tha nks for clearing that up.
I like Scottish notes. I don;t like seeing royals on the currency, but like you I accept everything but blows.
Euros are accepted in Munguin Towers too, or Krone, or Zloties
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The Triumph Spitfire was also built on the Herald Chassis, and was often referred to as ‘a Herald in drag’. It had much the same engine, but with twin carbs. The Vitesse referred to in earlier posts also had it’s sporty ‘in drag’ version…the GT6.
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I’d have liked that, I think.
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Yes to get quite few pints of beer for one of them
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You wouldn’t get a thimble full now.
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Notice the false promise. “I promise to pay the bearer ON DEMAND the sum of Ten Shillings”
This is a reference to the fact that Bank Notes are actually IOU’s and NOT real money. It is a a Debt instrument no different to an IOU from your nearest pal, only the credit rating is probably better. Though these days the credit rating is getting near worthless. It’s real money for me Gold N Silver.
Pound Sterling is in fact a reference to the old mint which was located in Stirling. Anglicised like everything else. We need to “take back control”.
Pound and Dollar are references to weights of Precious Metals in Troy ounces.
One of the first things we need to do on independence is to stack tonnes of Gold and Silver in the Central Bank under lock and key for the good people of this land.
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Munguin volunteers to have it stacked in the basement at Munguin Towers. 🙂
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Yep and farthings too.
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I love farthings. For the Wren, obviously. Not for their worth!
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A lot of the pre 47 coins were destroyed and made into diy rings because of the high silver content. You drilled a hole in the middle, put a bolt through secured by a nut then while slowly turning on an anvil hit it gently with a hammer till forged out to the desired width. You then gripped said bolt in lathe chuck and polished it to a mirror finish. Next step you bored it out using a lathe to the desired finger size and wore it proudly until you got bored with it.
If done properly you ended up with a ring which on the inside edge had perfectly preserved, both sides of the writing which had previously been on the outside edge of the coin, including the date.
Engineering factories in the 70s rang to the tap tapping of twa bob bits being converted into silver rings while the company work was temporarily put to the side. The whole fad must have lasted till the coin supply was depleted. At least a couple of months.
Then it was on to the next wee project.
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The next wee project being making car roof racks out of “salvaged” electrical conduit.
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Waste not, want not.
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Ah ha… the things folk did!
Erm, are you by any chance talking from personal experience there?
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A shilling was 12 pence, 20 shillings were one pound. ( 12 times 20 = 240) So in the pre decimal era 12 divided by 240 equalled 20. Thus you are absolutely correct! I seem to remember a half p, but I may be completely drunk. Equally my arithmetic is pretty wonky too.
240d in a pound, 100 p in a pound. Thus a p = 2.4 d. So 5p ( 2.4 times 5 = 12d!) and 2.5p (2.4 times 2.5) equals 6d.
Hurrah! I should be promoted to Primary One.
I bloody hated pre=decimilisation! Although learning weights was even worse. 16 ounces – 1 lb, 14 lb = i stone some number of stones = one hundredwight and so on and so forth.
Thank God for the French!
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Being chained to Imperial measures was a rod for your own back.
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Very good.
I expect that had to pound it into people’s heads… It must have been hard if you were stoned.
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Tris, some did say “One Florin”.
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*Rolls sleeves up*. They could be hard to fathom for sure, but my teacher had no scruples, he’d make you stay there furlong as it took…
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Don’t hide your light under a bushel, Conan – that rod for your back had to be a pole. I spent a lot of my time banished to the school yard, trying to inch my way back into favour. It was a waste of firkin time!
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OK OK, I’m giving up…
It’s too late and I’m going to bed and leave you and andi to put you feet in it.
Bonne nuit à tous et à toutes!
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Slightly off topic but still predecimalisation, I am sure some of those in the construction industry may remember duodecimal in regard to measurement.
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Ha ha.. well beyond my technical abilities:
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There were also Farthings. 1/4 of a penny, so there were 240 d in a pound; 480 halfpennies in a £ and 960 farthings in a £!
Weights, distances and capacity all had their own daft measurements.
How did anyone ever keep that inside their heads.
And when it came to French you had to learn the passé simple, which you’d not need unless you were going to read Voltaire!
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I may be havering, but I think there were half p’s in the post decimilisation era too. Talk me down!
I quite enjoy a lot of American woodworking sites on this internet thingy. They still stick to sixteenths as a unit of measurement. It drives me crazy.
Messing up imperial and metric units made at least one Mars exploration vehicle crash rather than land, IIRC.
—————
I used the word passé today. On one of my interminable Herald arguements. How weird is that?
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Yes there were half pence coins post decimalisation. I think they were phased out in the early Eighties
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Douglas……People at NASA and JPL still cringe over that lost Mars lander due to a metric-imperial unit conversion mixup.
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/01/news/mn-17288
It’s a lot more fun when a Mars lander doesn’t crash. This is the JPL control room in Pasadena, California, when the “Curiosity” rover landed on Mars in 2012. There’s a fifteen minute interval when you know it’s landed OR it’s crashed, but you don’t know which until the radio signal makes the 15 minute light speed trip to earth with the information.
The pictures got better. It can even take a selfie…….using a composite of images taken at various angles by a wide field camera on a long arm.
https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/pia19808/looking-up-at-mars-rover-curiosity-in-buckskin-selfie
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LOL. I’m on my holidays and I have a selfie stick…
Bit of a blunder that though… in a slightly less expensive way, it’s probably happened to a lot of people buying carpets or curtains…
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Doesn’t everyone read Voltaire in the original French text – it’s not a gargantuan text, after all. In fact, to be Candide, sorry candid, it’s the best in the best of all possible worlds, I’d say. or was it Dr. Pangloss who said that?
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Ouch!… or as we would say in France… Aie!
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The farthings had a wren on them and the halfpenny had a ship.
In the mid sixties, I worked in a bank near the ‘carnivals’ at Aberdeen beach. The penny in the slot guys would bring in bags of pennies that they had weighed for £5. However, because the coins were worn they usually contained an extra 4 to 5 bob. But it was such a filthy job to count them we were allowed to keep the bonus.
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I’ve often wondered about that when they weight bags of money, because bit by bit the coins must get lighter.
I remember being told about hos dirty money was and I didn’t think about it at the time, but you have no idea, do you, who has handled it, and where it’s been.
If that puts anyone off having money, can I propose that they send it to Munguin at Munguin Towers, where he will be happy to look after it for you.
He’s not fussed about how dirty it is as he gets me to count it for him.
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I remember the ha’penny…it had a sailing boat on the reverse side if recall correctly.
I also remember the so-called “wooden thrupenny” (3d) and it’s posh pal the silver thupenny.
My granny used to save up silver thrupennies to put in a clootie dumpling.
Whit about “farthings”…they had a wee bird on the reverse, a wren I think.
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Yes, a ship and a wren.
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Yes, shillings were much bigger than the equivalent now, and with real silver in them… they would be worth a bit.
I didn’t know you and Gerry knew each other…
🙂
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I remember the tale in towns that had a high percentage of married quarters in them like Rosyth, if you saw a packet of OMO in the window, it was shorthand for Old Man Overseas…
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How embarrassing if some poor woman only bought it becasue it really did get washing a brighter white… or a whiter bright… or something
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🙂
OMO should have gone on to invent something actually useful, like anti-gravity or summat.
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Oh be fair, soap powder is quite useful.
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Hmm..
We used to just boil clothes….
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LOL…
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Douglas…….Boiling clothes might work. And then there’s going down to the river and beating them with stones. Doesn’t seem like that would make them any cleaner though.
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Looking at how full of sand the River Tay is, I think it would make them considerably dirtier.
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Yes Tris……I never understood that beating them with stones in the river bit. But you see pictures of that.
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Bloody hell! I too have heard that story.
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Ditto, Faslane, Conan!
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The Edsel Villager I think its called , great for 1950’s/60’s America , over here it would rust in a week . Pay as you gas , also remember pay as you go tv , with the 50p meters on the back of the tv . The Triumph I though was a Dolomite , before looking at the comments , really nice car . Friut gums mmmmm . love em . As for the OMO , white bright on a summers day , blinds everyone walking towards you . And finally the only man with more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei Keith Richards with Mick and Pet Clark the year was maybe 1965 .
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Pretty good going Ricky.
Imagine watching the telly and right at the important bit…. blank. The meter wants another 50p!
Mick may have a face like a relief map of the Himalayas, but he still has the figure of a teenager… and they still tour. As indeed does Petula who is touring French Canada next month with a new album…; at 85.
I wish I could have a glass of what they drink
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This has been a lot of fun. Gotta get a bit of sleep before the St Johnstone game.
You rock!
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G’night Douglas. Sleep well.
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A few items from this interesting group of comments:
The 1958-60 car named after Edsel Ford (Henry Ford’s son,) was an iconic failure. In America, it was called the “Edsel.” Was it marketed as the “Edzell” in the UK?
As for coins….”Not worth a brass farthing.”
There was a Farthing coin minted for 100 years from 1860 to 1960.
But for about 900 years, starting with the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as early as King Offa in 785, the English penny was a small silver coin weighing 1/240 of a pound sterling (less a bit to pay the “moneyer” who struck them.) For about 500 years, they were the only coins minted in England.
The thin hammer-struck pennies were sometimes cut in quarters to produce “fourthlings”…..Anglo-Saxon “feorthing.”
A penny from the reign of King Edgar I, tenth century. The old pennies were in the range of 15-20 mm diameter, so the quarter cut fourthlings were tiny pieces of silver.
The location of the Olympia in Paris caught my eye……”Boulevard des Capucines”
A Claude Monet painting by that name is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. I was looking at it a while back. The little balloons are very prominent, with bright paint applied impasto. Much more prominent on the canvas than in pictures I see. “Boulevard des Capucines” was displayed by Monet at the first impressionist exhibition in Paris in April, 1874. But there’s another picture by Monet of the same location by the same name that might have been the one at the historic exhibition. (Kansas City thinks it has the exhibition picture.)
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They were hideous although they still crop up for sale in Classic magazines…
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/list/21/edsel/
I don;t think it was ever marketed here. It would have been wider than the roads!. So I think Edzell is a spelling error. We have a town called Edzell not far from here.
Boulevard des Capucines is a rather posh shopping street in Paris. I remember having to meet a mate there one time and arriving early. Wandering along looking in the shops, thinking about getting another pair of shoes, I can still remember the horror of finding that the average price of them was more than twice my monthly income!
Here’s a snap that I took when I was there…
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Tris…..The Edsel was a great failure for Ford. That front grille work is iconic. A symbol of a great automotive mistake.
Sounds like Boulevard des Capucines is better for window shopping than actually buying. You’ve been traveling to Paris for a lot longer than I realized. 😉
The Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City says that they spent well over a million dollars for the Monet many decades ago. A bargain price even way back then for an historically important work that was at the very first impressionist exhibition in Paris. But it turns out that Monet painted two of them with the same title, so the one at the first exhibition is EITHER the one in Kansas City or the other one in Moscow.
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Ha ha, Danny.
That narrows it down a bit then…
At least we can be sure it’s not the one in Pyongyang!
Although Munguin was kinda hoping it was the one he bought in the local market for £5,75!
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There may be more of them around than I thought……LOL.
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Busy day today, just getting back on. I really like all our Yesterday’s blogs Tris, gets us away from politics a bit and reminiscing for the ole times and remembering things from the depths of our minds, hope you can keep them going
🙂
Are you asking Munguin for more dosh? Seems to be a few keen regular followers.
To answer your earlier question Yes, me and Dave both work at the Airport, ATC Air/Ground radio. Both have an interest in classic cars, and both fly light aircraft together.
Roll on Soppy Sunday, bit of relaxation then it’ll be back into a week of politics. Can things get any worse with this shambles of a government in Westminster?
Only time will tell.
Good to see Nico posting again!
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Yes, Gerry. I’m going to keep them up becasue, as you say, they seem to be remarkably popular. I can’t remember how they started, but it seems it was a good idea.
No point ever in asking Munguin for money. He’s definitely tight flippered.
As I said, I’d no idea you and Dave were friends and colleagues.
Just away to do some Soppy Sundaying now.
My mum was just saying earlier today that she has never come across such an incompetent British government.
Everything they touch is broken. The latest thing is this magical electronic border that Davis is promising to sort the Irish problem. A FOI request showed that Davis’s team hasn’t even approached any companies to see if they can do it… and how much it will cost.
What do we pay them for again, remind me.
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Silver coins have milled edges , when they were all silver it is said the shopkeepers would trim off a little piece and sell the pieces off as bullion, you needed access to lots of coins. Early coins are not round due to this redistribution of wealth.
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Jeez… were they all Tories?
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The Roman emperors used to do the same thing to get money to finnance their wars. Now we just print more IOUs. Never to be repaid of course.
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