I've always wondered why Australia switched to using dollars and cents rather than simply decimalising the pound like the UK did in 1971? Had no one considered that they didn't have to adopt the American terms?
menzies wanted 2 call it the roayal. why didn't he just call it the "british are so much better than us and they are our lorads and superiors". man he had his tongue up the qqueen of england's arsehole
@orchardcottage - I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that back then, it may have been felt that the English language was best taught and coached for broadcasting by the English themselves (as opposed to Scottish, Welsh, Manx or Northern Irish).
I wish our decimal currency ads in the UK had been this catchy! We didn't adopt the dollar currency because it wouldn't go down well with our European neighbours who think that we are in bed with America.
Given the USofA had decimal currency for such a long time, I could never figure out the reluctance of the country and the people to adopt the metric system completely. It just makes life easier.
@MrTennesseeVols lol, not a problem at all. it is the £sd system from the mother country. although we went decimal in 1978, some of us still convert back to £sd.
This is fantastic. I actually remember this. I was 5 at the time. The reason that the dollar bill speaks more like an English person than an Australian is that prior to about 1972 middle class or educated Australian was supposed to sound as English as possible. This was particularly so on TV, especially the ABC. The growing nationalism of the 1970s, especially after the Whitlam government changed this.
@missbspencer - They had the same sort of attitude in the UK at that time too. No matter what your natural local accent sounded like, you were expected to learn and use the very proper, clipped, upper-class accent, if you worked on-air at the BBC, or if you were an actor or actress. My friend's mother-in-law grew up in Scotland, but she spoke with a perfect, posh "BBC" accent, because she'd worked on-air on the BBC in the 1950s and '60s.
what a GREAT ad...it would have been a wonderful teaching tool in what would have been an extremely confusing time during the chageover...shopping would have been so complicated for the first few months...thanks for posting
I love this ad. Why can't "public information campaigns" be this entertaining nowadays? I always think of decimal currency and the "dollar" and become slightly bemused that it was actually Menzies who brought it in
@UKSazzy67 I enjoyed that too. I'm American, and even though our money's always been in decimals, the New York Stock Exchange still used fractions like 1/8ths and 1/16ths until about a decade ago. Weird stuff.
Actually, the statement that 97% of the population was using decimal currency may have been incorrect. They are not including those that use indivisible currency (large numbers/small value, e.g., Korean Won). I wondered if the idea of simply making the pence the currency came up. 200d, 500d and larger notes could have replaced pounds and shillings.
It would be funny if they made a commercial like that today (especially in the USA).
When the Rothschild banking shitheads try to con us into accepting the Amero after the U.S. Dollar collapse they'll pull a shenanigan like this, the only difference is they'll steal 95% of what our dollar was worth! When this happens I will not fall for it. Gold and silver only!
People were ripped off by shopkeepers at the crossover though losing 2d in every shilling. Any change like this needs legislation to protect consumers.
Whenever I am delirious with fever or alcohol,
I ask myself if I can remember the crossover date for decimal currency.
When I can, I realise I am not so ill.
14th February 1966 will be my own yardstick to diagnose Alzheimers.
I just hope I can remember to ask myself that question.
Why did they replace the old faces and put really ugly fucks on there, with horrible colors? Banjo Paterson is still there but they took off the guy who fucking INVENTED penicillin and saved 80 lives in WW2, and there are like five women or something. Why? And they all look so BAD. Change it again. The change was in 1993. Do it again.
the problem is that whenever I hear this song, i not only think of the original, but this, AND ads for "sears workwear" and "timberline" becasue they both used click go the shears for their jingles.
Sorry Kiwis, if truth be told, Aussies have great affection for our family across the trench, but our expressed antipathy is to disguise our jealousy - l mean you guys stood up to the United States of America and declared yourself Nuke-free, and you stood up to the Republic of France and their state-sponsored terrorism on your soil !
You punch well above your weight, Kiwis are the best brothers and sisters, the very best family we could have.
The USA has always had dollars and cents, although there was a period of "pieces of eight" , each fragment worth 12.5 cents. This has survived as "two bits" and stock prices sometimes in eights of a dollar.
my parents did use imperial coin system and was said it was very confusing to work out the cost of the total and now they said it is easier to use metric and the adding up is a lot easier so remember it is not bad to use click, go the shears!
I don't know why Australia and New Zealand didn't keep the terms 'pound' and 'pence' when they decimalised, like Britain did. I suspect it was a deliberate cultural move - they were trying to distance themselves from the Mother Country by dropping all reference to anything British, but instead ended up copying the Americans by using the very dull and unimaginative 'dollar' and 'cent'!!
That's probably true disremembrance. And as an American Anglophile, I'm considered that when Australia and New Zealand finally become republics, it will become impossible in those countries to embrace one's British heritage just as it is impossible in the United States to embrace one's British heritage.
Because there were 240 pence in a pound before Britain changed and 100 new pence after some found this confusing (the pound staying the same value). Australia did a better job by keeping the main coins the same size for equal value (1/- = 10¢ etc). The numbers on notes doubled because £1 = $2 but to make things easier the colours stayed the same for notes of equal value. Better to move totally away from the old term if the value is gonna change.
I still look to the crown....I believe this was a Move by Harold Holt at the time, he may have been trying to make that cultural change...i.e. abolishing the white Australia policy....these factors could be reasons for his demise during his term.
When the UK switched to decimal the pound did not change. Shillings and pence where replaced with cents (which for some daft reason they called 'new pence') A shilling then equalled 5 cents (new pence).
Australia and NZ however spit the pound in two so that 10 shillings = 1 dollar. It just made the maths that little bit easier. A shilling was then worth 10 cents.
@DeltaNC - They called them "new pence" to distinguish them from the pence used under the pre-decimal system. They had to make it abundantly clear that an "old penny" and a "new penny" did not have the same value. A "new penny" is worth 2.4 times as much as an "old penny" was.
But it's all pretty much moot now, because they stopped writing "new pence" on coins in 1981.
@disremembrance Actually, the truth is quite funny. Mr Menzies, an arch-royalist, wanted to call the currency the Royal - but that reminded too many of the Russian Rouble, so that would never do. Then they suggested 'Austral' but 'an Austral' sounded like 'a nostril' so that was the end of that. So they had to fix on the dollar.
Thanks for sharing this, very sensible move from the pounds, shillings, pence n pennies to dollars n cents! Now this covers the coins but what about the notes, was there an advert that illustrates the conversion from pounds to dollars?
No, but my dad was the creator of Dollar Bill. He worked for the ad agency that was retained for the campaign (a firm that I think was the precurser to Leo Burnett in Australia - I don't know the name). As always, the idea came to him in the shower one morning. The wife of his boss had suggested, at a work cocktail party, an upright, floppy, wibbly wobbly dollar note kind of a dude. Dad hated the idea, and Dollar Bill, the rolled up version, was born.
Oops! Sorry, I am used to call it the UE because it is called like that in the Latin languages (Union Européene in French, Unión Europea in Spanish, Unione Europea in Italian, etc.).
The angled sides was also a justification to differentiate it from the 20c piece which it was often confused with, and which was just slightly smaller, but made it harder to differentiate to the touch.
I have a number of the Original 50c in my possession, and the level of silver is considerably higher than that of the current coin. Visually it has less shine which differentiates it. Not to mention the angled sides.
Following on from the comment below. Aus and NZ called the old 10 shilling the new dollar and divided that into 100 parts. As there were 120 pennies to the old 10 shilling, this was a far closer correspondence to the old system (1c = 1.2d). Plus, of course, they changed the names, so there was even less chance of confusion.
I'm a pom who used to live in NZ. I'm also old enough to remember the old money in the UK. I must say I much prefer the way Aus and NZ changed to the decimal system, rather than the way the UK did it. The UK kept the pound the same and divided it into 100 parts, calling each one a penny. The old system however had 240 pennies to the pound, so many Brits felt they were being ripped off when they saw price increases of say 2 pence, which was actually close to 5 pence in old money!
I wonder why Feb. 14 was the date for the changeover? Why not the first of a month?
I never realized how weird and screwy the old system was to try to add up.
If the USA was the first to switch to a decimal money system back in the 1700s, why can't it now switch to metric measurements like the rest of the world? I'll answer that: Because it's FOREIGN and therefore it must be inferior. And why should we superior Americans have to submit to such a degrading thing?
Good question - maybe it would have been pre-empting the UK if it had kept the pound. As it happens, the then PM wanted to call the new currency the 'royal'! (That's what the name of the Brazilian currency, the 'real' translates as, and it's a republic.)
It is actually less confusing this way, as people can see a clear distinction between the two currencies.
In the UK they where considering going from "Pound & pence" to "Pound & cents". Had they done it this way it would have been a lot less confusing for people and probably would have been accepted quicker.
Nobody today would want to go back to the confusing L/S/D system. I just wish people here would see the imperial to metric conversion the same way!
The 12-sided coins were officially introduced in 1969. The silver content of the round 50 cent coins was worth more than the face value, so the coins cost more to make than they were worth.
@youngwidow2007 It's a 12-sided coin now, but it started out as a round silver coin. There were two reasons for the change. The round coin was all too easy to confuse with the 20 cent piece, and the silver in the coin was more valuable than 50 cents. So they redesigned the coin with 12 sides around the edge and made it out of the same cheap metal as the other coins are. End of the problem, and the end of the beautiful, round silvery coin.
I sure do. :) Would you happen to have a New Zealandian clip, too? I've been told that there was a "DC Day Tomorrow" clip that was shown on TV in July 1967, but I haven't been able to find it anywhere...
I love this clip ... it's so educational and god I just must have some of those Dollar Bills. But how many platypusses can be divided into one emu while carrying over 12s to the h'penny?? Will it buy me enough chokos to make an apple pie???? ... Confused housewife!!
very educational ... but what about my 8d platypus shilling 10p emu bill - will that buy me 2 or 3 chokos, or should I convert it to a 2d thip'ny with a possum thown in to make my strawberry fool???? ... signed, "Confused 50's housewife"
They thought i was crazy when i recited the jingle in class
ha WHOS CRAZY NOW!!! MWhahahahahahahahHAHHaaha
schwazer210 3 months ago
The 50c coin was modified soon after by making it a 12 sided coin (so it would not be confused with the 20c coin)
CalyxAsgard 7 months ago
@CalyxAsgard It also had a silver content that exceeded its face value, so they were recalled and remelted.
Snurdgerbly 3 months ago
I've always wondered why Australia switched to using dollars and cents rather than simply decimalising the pound like the UK did in 1971? Had no one considered that they didn't have to adopt the American terms?
haku8645 8 months ago
menzies wanted 2 call it the roayal. why didn't he just call it the "british are so much better than us and they are our lorads and superiors". man he had his tongue up the qqueen of england's arsehole
sliat1981 8 months ago
And then along came the GST to confuse us all again.
creativeengineer 9 months ago
@creativeengineer
Is the concept of 10% beyond you?
PattomanLimboski 7 months ago
Gotta love the gender stereotypes.
TheLukeBot 9 months ago
The lyrics were written by Ted Roberts.
BooksAndWriters 11 months ago
SO GLAD USD WAS DECIMALIZED TO BEGIN WITH!
rosrychaplet 1 year ago
Why did Dollar Bill have a British accent?
orchardcottage 1 year ago
@orchardcottage - I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that back then, it may have been felt that the English language was best taught and coached for broadcasting by the English themselves (as opposed to Scottish, Welsh, Manx or Northern Irish).
JBofBrisbane 1 year ago
@orchardcottage on tv back then it was considered 'proper' to speak in a more RP British way
simjom02 9 months ago
I wish our decimal currency ads in the UK had been this catchy! We didn't adopt the dollar currency because it wouldn't go down well with our European neighbours who think that we are in bed with America.
Feisty1967 1 year ago
It's a catchy little tune, I wish I could get it as a ringtone.
Feisty1967 1 year ago
@Feisty1967 Its to the tune of click go the shears an Australian folk song
meringandan 1 year ago
LOL@"Click go the shears" in RP.
MAKEDANOS 1 year ago
Hooray for decimal Currency!
sincityfire 1 year ago
HaHaHa! This is really interesting! The UK didn't go decimal until Feb 1971, we must've been the last country on earth to go decimal!
Feisty1967 1 year ago
@Feisty1967 When are you going to go metric in your other measurements? :P
kuliwil 1 year ago
@kuliwil We already have! All measurements are in cms and Kms these days. But when it comes to height, we still think in feet and inches.
Feisty1967 1 year ago
@Feisty1967 haha, by "other measurements" I had meant height and weight. But yeah, I get where you're coming from for your reply.
kuliwil 1 year ago
@Feisty1967 They said one of the, and they forgot to keep their parent country (the UK) uncovered.
jjovereats 1 year ago
They used the same tune for Ronald McDonald's "Make it Click" song!
lcmortensen 1 year ago
One of the best 4 minutes Ive spent on youtube....Fantastic!
admanhawks 1 year ago
thank goodness for decimal currency
MultiCosmic10 1 year ago
Given the USofA had decimal currency for such a long time, I could never figure out the reluctance of the country and the people to adopt the metric system completely. It just makes life easier.
leglessinoz 1 year ago
How the Hell did Aussies, Kiwis, and Brits do this in the pre-decimal days!? X.x
AdelioAltomar 1 year ago 3
@AdelioAltomar It looks like it would have been a damn hassle to figure up sums in Australia prior to 1966!
MrTennesseeVols 1 year ago
@MrTennesseeVols lol, not a problem. it was the £.s.d. system from the mother country. we went decimal in 1978.
gramule 1 year ago
@MrTennesseeVols lol, not a problem at all. it is the £sd system from the mother country. although we went decimal in 1978, some of us still convert back to £sd.
gramule 1 year ago
This is fantastic. I actually remember this. I was 5 at the time. The reason that the dollar bill speaks more like an English person than an Australian is that prior to about 1972 middle class or educated Australian was supposed to sound as English as possible. This was particularly so on TV, especially the ABC. The growing nationalism of the 1970s, especially after the Whitlam government changed this.
missbspencer 1 year ago 3
@missbspencer - They had the same sort of attitude in the UK at that time too. No matter what your natural local accent sounded like, you were expected to learn and use the very proper, clipped, upper-class accent, if you worked on-air at the BBC, or if you were an actor or actress. My friend's mother-in-law grew up in Scotland, but she spoke with a perfect, posh "BBC" accent, because she'd worked on-air on the BBC in the 1950s and '60s.
OofusTwillip 1 year ago
I can't believe how intelligent old TV ads were. I couldn't keep up with the maths. :-/
uzaiyaro 1 year ago
what a GREAT ad...it would have been a wonderful teaching tool in what would have been an extremely confusing time during the chageover...shopping would have been so complicated for the first few months...thanks for posting
ilovepepe2 1 year ago
I love this ad. Why can't "public information campaigns" be this entertaining nowadays? I always think of decimal currency and the "dollar" and become slightly bemused that it was actually Menzies who brought it in
jalec3 1 year ago
My God I'm English and I thoroughly enjoyed that! we didn't get decimilisation until Feb 1971!
UKSazzy67 1 year ago
@UKSazzy67 I enjoyed that too. I'm American, and even though our money's always been in decimals, the New York Stock Exchange still used fractions like 1/8ths and 1/16ths until about a decade ago. Weird stuff.
eksortso 1 year ago 2
@UKSazzy67 and you're still fighting the total conversion to a metric system.
leglessinoz 1 year ago
they could have had a decimal pound. Who cares about dollars?
alanbstard4 2 years ago
Actually, the statement that 97% of the population was using decimal currency may have been incorrect. They are not including those that use indivisible currency (large numbers/small value, e.g., Korean Won). I wondered if the idea of simply making the pence the currency came up. 200d, 500d and larger notes could have replaced pounds and shillings.
Image an ad copy:
2010 Ford Falcon, from 4,714,900d !
1L6E6VHF 2 years ago
It would be funny if they made a commercial like that today (especially in the USA).
When the Rothschild banking shitheads try to con us into accepting the Amero after the U.S. Dollar collapse they'll pull a shenanigan like this, the only difference is they'll steal 95% of what our dollar was worth! When this happens I will not fall for it. Gold and silver only!
Elinitsam 2 years ago
@Elinitsam right on
koolyman 2 years ago
People were ripped off by shopkeepers at the crossover though losing 2d in every shilling. Any change like this needs legislation to protect consumers.
Whenever I am delirious with fever or alcohol,
I ask myself if I can remember the crossover date for decimal currency.
When I can, I realise I am not so ill.
14th February 1966 will be my own yardstick to diagnose Alzheimers.
I just hope I can remember to ask myself that question.
ParArdua 2 years ago
Comment removed
barcalonga 2 years ago
@barcalonga - breathtakingly stupid comment
314159192829 1 year ago
@314159192829
the only thing breathtakingly stupid is someone who makes a response like that - YOU!
barcalonga 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Why did they replace the old faces and put really ugly fucks on there, with horrible colors? Banjo Paterson is still there but they took off the guy who fucking INVENTED penicillin and saved 80 lives in WW2, and there are like five women or something. Why? And they all look so BAD. Change it again. The change was in 1993. Do it again.
livegems 2 years ago
I am gonna be singing this all day.
chelsea1802 2 years ago 6
the problem is that whenever I hear this song, i not only think of the original, but this, AND ads for "sears workwear" and "timberline" becasue they both used click go the shears for their jingles.
alphamone 2 years ago
I love the little swipe at NZ at around 1:50.
Djehuti8 2 years ago
Yeah, "don't let the Kiwis beat us to it" - like they did with colour TV.
kmfw72 2 years ago 5
@Djehuti8
Sorry mate, Aussie arrogance, again.
ParArdua 2 years ago
@Djehuti8
Sorry Kiwis, if truth be told, Aussies have great affection for our family across the trench, but our expressed antipathy is to disguise our jealousy - l mean you guys stood up to the United States of America and declared yourself Nuke-free, and you stood up to the Republic of France and their state-sponsored terrorism on your soil !
You punch well above your weight, Kiwis are the best brothers and sisters, the very best family we could have.
Happy New Year everyone !
ParArdua 2 years ago 3
Congratulations, Australia. When France switched to the euro, the TV clips were not as entertaining
Vindsxtono 2 years ago 20
@Vindsxtono was the franc non-decimal ??!!
lexyzimus 1 year ago
@lexyzimus The franc was decimal. So is the euro. But I mean this change in people's daily life inspired a very entertaining clip
Vindsxtono 1 year ago
@Vindsxtono oh i see, well, i don't remember any clip in germany ... maybe i forgot
lexyzimus 1 year ago
The USA has always had dollars and cents, although there was a period of "pieces of eight" , each fragment worth 12.5 cents. This has survived as "two bits" and stock prices sometimes in eights of a dollar.
BayAreaBiker2001 2 years ago
my parents did use imperial coin system and was said it was very confusing to work out the cost of the total and now they said it is easier to use metric and the adding up is a lot easier so remember it is not bad to use click, go the shears!
mjtunstall1976 2 years ago
Decimal currency is awesome. I just wish those of us in America would switch over to the metric system.
Paradox244 2 years ago 2
I don't know why Australia and New Zealand didn't keep the terms 'pound' and 'pence' when they decimalised, like Britain did. I suspect it was a deliberate cultural move - they were trying to distance themselves from the Mother Country by dropping all reference to anything British, but instead ended up copying the Americans by using the very dull and unimaginative 'dollar' and 'cent'!!
disremembrance 2 years ago
That's probably true disremembrance. And as an American Anglophile, I'm considered that when Australia and New Zealand finally become republics, it will become impossible in those countries to embrace one's British heritage just as it is impossible in the United States to embrace one's British heritage.
1prouddemocrat 2 years ago
Because there were 240 pence in a pound before Britain changed and 100 new pence after some found this confusing (the pound staying the same value). Australia did a better job by keeping the main coins the same size for equal value (1/- = 10¢ etc). The numbers on notes doubled because £1 = $2 but to make things easier the colours stayed the same for notes of equal value. Better to move totally away from the old term if the value is gonna change.
anthrass 2 years ago 2
I still look to the crown....I believe this was a Move by Harold Holt at the time, he may have been trying to make that cultural change...i.e. abolishing the white Australia policy....these factors could be reasons for his demise during his term.
labuff83 2 years ago
no, he died because he was an idiot and went swimming in the ocean alone and got into trouble and drowned.
alphamone 2 years ago
we know what the reports told us and how and why he died, but maybe it was more than just an accident.?
labuff83 2 years ago
When the UK switched to decimal the pound did not change. Shillings and pence where replaced with cents (which for some daft reason they called 'new pence') A shilling then equalled 5 cents (new pence).
Australia and NZ however spit the pound in two so that 10 shillings = 1 dollar. It just made the maths that little bit easier. A shilling was then worth 10 cents.
DeltaNC 2 years ago
@DeltaNC - They called them "new pence" to distinguish them from the pence used under the pre-decimal system. They had to make it abundantly clear that an "old penny" and a "new penny" did not have the same value. A "new penny" is worth 2.4 times as much as an "old penny" was.
But it's all pretty much moot now, because they stopped writing "new pence" on coins in 1981.
OofusTwillip 1 year ago
@disremembrance Actually, the truth is quite funny. Mr Menzies, an arch-royalist, wanted to call the currency the Royal - but that reminded too many of the Russian Rouble, so that would never do. Then they suggested 'Austral' but 'an Austral' sounded like 'a nostril' so that was the end of that. So they had to fix on the dollar.
Ashbury2193 1 year ago
Never thought I'd hear that particular jingle again. Thanks very much for posting that; it was a genuine trip down nostalgia lane.
Kachiko20 2 years ago
I love that at 2:09 "Housewives will find decimal currency simpler."
You know what that means? Even dollars are sexist!
bruinbeer69 2 years ago
Thanks for sharing this, very sensible move from the pounds, shillings, pence n pennies to dollars n cents! Now this covers the coins but what about the notes, was there an advert that illustrates the conversion from pounds to dollars?
typicalaussiebloke 2 years ago
I sincerely hope that the UK £ will never be changed to euros or to dollarz
mbtemlett 2 years ago
I think there's even less chance of the UK having a currency called the dollar than there is of it adopting the euro.
kmfw72 2 years ago
Well, as a citizen of the UE I think that the U.K. should definitely switch to the Euro, like most European countries have already done.
BTW, cool animation -and a nice piece of Australian history. Does anybody know which animation studio did this?
alftoon 2 years ago
No, but my dad was the creator of Dollar Bill. He worked for the ad agency that was retained for the campaign (a firm that I think was the precurser to Leo Burnett in Australia - I don't know the name). As always, the idea came to him in the shower one morning. The wife of his boss had suggested, at a work cocktail party, an upright, floppy, wibbly wobbly dollar note kind of a dude. Dad hated the idea, and Dollar Bill, the rolled up version, was born.
mukkynmett 2 years ago 14
I'm glad we haven't ditched the pound just yet.
smiffy1071 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Fuck that. Keep the pound!
marksoutof10 2 years ago
It's called the EU in English, not the UE.
kmfw72 2 years ago
Oops! Sorry, I am used to call it the UE because it is called like that in the Latin languages (Union Européene in French, Unión Europea in Spanish, Unione Europea in Italian, etc.).
alftoon 2 years ago
Don't worry, we're not all nit pickey! He clearly knew what you meant.
DeltaNC 2 years ago
I can see why we decimalised, but why couldn't we keep the pound, and not switch to the yankee dollar?
mgo26 2 years ago
Well, some of us Brits think that the name change was a good idea. See my comments below.
britecho 2 years ago
The new decimal currency was to be the 'Royal' but was changed to the dollar due to public pressure.
The dollar had its origins as a Spanish coin long before the Americans decided to use it as the name of their currency.
lyallsf 2 years ago
why is the 50 cent piece round?
liber8me 3 years ago
after the original 50 cent coin was issued it was discovered that the content of silver made it more valuable than 50 cents!
it was then reissued with changed alloy and the sides added.
tilon2000 3 years ago
lol wow wonder who screwed up
do you know why they did change to angled sides?
liber8me 3 years ago
from memory i think the sides were added for the benefit of the visually impaired.
tilon2000 3 years ago
The angled sides was also a justification to differentiate it from the 20c piece which it was often confused with, and which was just slightly smaller, but made it harder to differentiate to the touch.
labuff83 2 years ago
I have a number of the Original 50c in my possession, and the level of silver is considerably higher than that of the current coin. Visually it has less shine which differentiates it. Not to mention the angled sides.
labuff83 2 years ago
Following on from the comment below. Aus and NZ called the old 10 shilling the new dollar and divided that into 100 parts. As there were 120 pennies to the old 10 shilling, this was a far closer correspondence to the old system (1c = 1.2d). Plus, of course, they changed the names, so there was even less chance of confusion.
britecho 3 years ago
I'm a pom who used to live in NZ. I'm also old enough to remember the old money in the UK. I must say I much prefer the way Aus and NZ changed to the decimal system, rather than the way the UK did it. The UK kept the pound the same and divided it into 100 parts, calling each one a penny. The old system however had 240 pennies to the pound, so many Brits felt they were being ripped off when they saw price increases of say 2 pence, which was actually close to 5 pence in old money!
britecho 3 years ago
I wonder why Feb. 14 was the date for the changeover? Why not the first of a month?
I never realized how weird and screwy the old system was to try to add up.
If the USA was the first to switch to a decimal money system back in the 1700s, why can't it now switch to metric measurements like the rest of the world? I'll answer that: Because it's FOREIGN and therefore it must be inferior. And why should we superior Americans have to submit to such a degrading thing?
hebneh 3 years ago 4
The middle of february was the quietest time of the year for banks.
mubd1234 3 years ago
hebneh, believe it or not, the USA was NOT the first country to use decimal currency. The Russians first used decimal currency. 1 Ruple=100 Kopecks.
1prouddemocrat 3 years ago
This video made me smile. I love that decimal man! hehe.
Jasexxxxx 3 years ago
wat bout england?
andyn355 3 years ago
In 1966, the average wage was 10 cents. In 2008, its $13.70.
supremerat 3 years ago
I do find it interesting though that Australia couldn't just do 1 pound= 100 pence. Why is that?
masslib 3 years ago
I don't know, may be it is because we wanted to be more American.
supremerat 3 years ago
Good question - maybe it would have been pre-empting the UK if it had kept the pound. As it happens, the then PM wanted to call the new currency the 'royal'! (That's what the name of the Brazilian currency, the 'real' translates as, and it's a republic.)
kmfw72 3 years ago
Australia is a monarchy, NOT a republic. Or are you refering to Brazil? In which case you're correct.
1prouddemocrat 3 years ago
It is actually less confusing this way, as people can see a clear distinction between the two currencies.
In the UK they where considering going from "Pound & pence" to "Pound & cents". Had they done it this way it would have been a lot less confusing for people and probably would have been accepted quicker.
Nobody today would want to go back to the confusing L/S/D system. I just wish people here would see the imperial to metric conversion the same way!
Australia is an inspiration to us all!
DeltaNC 3 years ago 2
It would be nice to see Australian DTV conversion adverts, like the USA has now.
HDTV conversion is universally painful, but less distracting than decriminalization.
eyreland 3 years ago
There's a colour version that was shown in movie theatres.
mubd1234 3 years ago
thanks for naming the shape i thought it had to be somewhere in those lines, you know what year it turned to be a dodecahedron shape?
youngwidow2007 3 years ago
The 12-sided coins were officially introduced in 1969. The silver content of the round 50 cent coins was worth more than the face value, so the coins cost more to make than they were worth.
barcode1000101 3 years ago
i thought the 50 cent coin was a hexagon shape not round
youngwidow2007 3 years ago
Its actually a dodecahedron. Originally, however, for the first year of its existence, the fifty cent piece was a round coin.
Finnymac84 3 years ago
actually it's a dodecagon
mickyc85 3 years ago
oh dear you are very correct. -gon implies two dimensional shape and -hedron implies three-dimensional shape, don't they.
Finnymac84 3 years ago
@youngwidow2007 It's a 12-sided coin now, but it started out as a round silver coin. There were two reasons for the change. The round coin was all too easy to confuse with the 20 cent piece, and the silver in the coin was more valuable than 50 cents. So they redesigned the coin with 12 sides around the edge and made it out of the same cheap metal as the other coins are. End of the problem, and the end of the beautiful, round silvery coin.
Ashbury2193 1 year ago
41 years later, we no longer have one cent or two cent coins.
commiepartyofwarwick 4 years ago
I know now they can rip you off by 1 or 2 cents.
eg. 98 cents for a lemonaid. You buy 1. It costs $1 but if you by 2 it costs $1.95 save 5 cents
Shrimp1997 4 years ago
So how many people kept there round 50c piece
mbrowne1045 4 years ago
I did. They have 80% silver in them. A lot of silver. I remember when I was 12 when decimal Currency came in.
Shrimp1997 4 years ago
Yes, I have about 3 of them.
At times I come across them, in my Job.
Ken69a 3 years ago
I saw the colour version of this at the national sound and film archive.
alphamone 4 years ago 2
Cool. I didn't know there was a color version
possibilities888 4 years ago
Yep - colour version was shown cinemas and drive-ins, black-and-white version was shown on TV.
Conniptions886 2 years ago
Wonderful. :)
Schneelocke 4 years ago 2
Glad you like it!
possibilities888 4 years ago
I sure do. :) Would you happen to have a New Zealandian clip, too? I've been told that there was a "DC Day Tomorrow" clip that was shown on TV in July 1967, but I haven't been able to find it anywhere...
Schneelocke 4 years ago
i love collecting those old notes, some of them can be worth up to 20,000 dollars, uncirculated(not used)
benmadrid5 4 years ago
how did you get this, i saw it on the rba website, i love it
benmadrid5 4 years ago
Did you hear the one about the magician?
possibilities888 4 years ago
magician?
benmadrid5 4 years ago
@possibilities888 no
bonzoAU 1 year ago
That's just SO cool. :)
Schneelocke 4 years ago
Oh, that was wonderful. :)
Schneelocke 4 years ago
I love this clip ... it's so educational and god I just must have some of those Dollar Bills. But how many platypusses can be divided into one emu while carrying over 12s to the h'penny?? Will it buy me enough chokos to make an apple pie???? ... Confused housewife!!
congobeat 5 years ago
very educational ... but what about my 8d platypus shilling 10p emu bill - will that buy me 2 or 3 chokos, or should I convert it to a 2d thip'ny with a possum thown in to make my strawberry fool???? ... signed, "Confused 50's housewife"
congobeat 5 years ago