Why were old pennies called 'd'?

D stands for denarius, a roman coin divisible by 10 but our old pennies were only divisible by 4, into farthings, and there were 12 of them in a shilling.
If you do not know why d for denarius was chosen please ask your history teacher because nobody seems to know the answer to this question!

Here it is on the stamps

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 1

ThomH97

21

You're looking at them upside-down, it's a p, not a d.

Reply 2

NJA

OP

20

I think I have the answer, people were just used to the term Denarii after hundreds of years so when the Roman Empire fell, they kept it.

There were 12 of them in a soludus just as there were 12 pennies in a shilling:

"With the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe, the use and minting of coins were disrupted. With gold in short supply, most coinage systems in medieval Europe turned to silver, and the penny was the main coin, with 12 pennies (or denarii) being worth one solidus (or shilling), while 20 solidi were equal to one libra (a pound of silver). For centuries throughout Europe, one of the biggest complaints was the lack of ‘small change’, which gave rise to low-denomination tokens being issued by private traders, although base-metal coins eventually came to be minted."
(source)

Reply 3

gplunkk

Original post by NJA

I think I have the answer, people were just used to the term Denarii after hundreds of years so when the Roman Empire fell, they kept it.

There were 12 of them in a soludus just as there were 12 pennies in a shilling:

"With the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe, the use and minting of coins were disrupted. With gold in short supply, most coinage systems in medieval Europe turned to silver, and the penny was the main coin, with 12 pennies (or denarii) being worth one solidus (or shilling), while 20 solidi were equal to one libra (a pound of silver). For centuries throughout Europe, one of the biggest complaints was the lack of ‘small change’, which gave rise to low-denomination tokens being issued by private traders, although base-metal coins eventually came to be minted."
(source)

The term 'dinero' (Spanish for money or treasure); is a derivation of denarius....

Reply 4

WADR

14

I remember the shock when I heard my grandad ask my dad if he needed some LSD! (he was going to the bar to get a big round in at a family do) Apparently it used to be slang for money (£,s,d)