I have this bizarre wish that Britain never dropped pre-decimal currency. After reading up on it and going through my grandfather's old coin collection, I've fallen in love with it. Not just the currency, but the era it was from. The idea of a penny actually having value.
I mean, these days, even a 5p coin is quite worthless. You wouldn't bend over to pick one up you spotted on the floor.
Yet reading up on how the decimal 5 pence is the equivalent of a shilling, and all that could be bought with a shilling.
The idea of £1 being this incredible huge amount, that only existed as notes, or if you were lucky enough to have one, a gold sovereign. Tiny denominations as well such as the halfpenny and farthing.
My anachronistic self has a longing for this lost past, when all coins had some sort of value (well, except the farthing, which eventually went out of use in 1960).
I've always hated modern prices and currency. I remember when I used to live here in Britain, and chocolate bars, which I always used to gauge the worth of my money, used to be 35p. Now I'm back for a holiday after three years and you'd be hard pressed to find any under 55p, the average being 60p. It makes your coinage feel incredibly worthless. I've lost all sense of the value of my money because prices just keep going up.
Sod the decimal system, I want to go back to the days when it was 20 shillings to the pound, 12 pence to the shilling.
STOP THE FUTURE, I WANT TO GET OFF.