British currency at the time of Elizabeth II's accession to the throne was pounds, shillings and pence. This was abbreviated to £sd. In this monetary system 12 pence = 1 shilling and 20 shillings (or 240 pence) = 1 pound.
The three characters forming the £sd abbreviation were commonly used to express the unit of currency. The pound was denoted with a '£', the shilling with an 's' or '/' and the penny (or pence if plural) by a 'd'.
In most cases the face value of pre-decimal postage stamps issued between 1952 and 1971 was expressed in numerical form with the relevant abbreviation for the unit.
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| L-R: One Penny (1d), One Shilling (1/-) and One Pound (£1) postage stamps |
The smallest unit of currency to appear on stamps from this period was the halfpenny. It was demonetised in 1969 prior to decimalisation in 1971.
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| L-R: Halfpenny (½d), Two Pence Halfpenny (2½D) postage stamps |
Values comprising multiple units were expressed in descending order from left to right e.g. pounds followed by shillings followed by pence.
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| One Shilling and Nine Pence (1/9) |
The written expression of pre-decimal values sometimes varied as seen in the one shilling stamps below. The left-hand stamp uses a '/' followed by a dash sign. This dash or '-' sign equated to zero so the literal meaning was One Shilling and Zero Pence.
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| One Shilling values abbreviated to '1/-' or '1s' |
Finally, here are two one shilling and six pence stamps with different abbreviations. However the currency units are still presented in the same order of shillings then pence.
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| One Shilling and Six Pence values abbreviated to '1/6' or '1s6d' |
In this blog I will generally use the 's' abbreviation for shillings and 'd' for pence. So seven pence would appear as 7d, one shilling as 1s and two shilling and six pence as 2s 6d. Aside from use on parcels and some high value airmail items, the pound is infrequently found. That said the '£' symbol will be used if required!
References: £sd - Wikipedia accessed December 2020
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