charisstoma

From banks and banking this arose over at meep's place.

Explanation from Meep:

£1 (pound) = 100p (pence)
Coins are silver in colour - 5p,10p,20p,50p
Then gold in colour - £1, £2 (actually silver with gold edging)
Then whats known as 'coppers' originlly made of copper (less so today) - 1p, 2p


Wiki-knowledge:

Sovereign -a historic gold coin of the United Kingdom, with a nominal value of one pound sterling but in practice used as a bullion coin.
In 2013 the Royal Mint announced that it would restart the manufacture of sovereigns in India to cater to the Indian market. These sovereigns will be minted by Indian gold producer MMTC-PAMP to Royal Mint specification. (Okay we all agree that I'm suspicious. Math question: Considering greed, how much lead needs to be coated in gold before it meets weight and appearance of the Royal Mint specification?" *coughs* Just kidding.*coughs*)

Shilling - comes from an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. There counted twelve pence to the shilling, with twenty shillings to the pound. The British shilling had succeeded the English shilling, and it remained in circulation until Decimal Day 1971, Upon decimalisation the British shilling was superseded by the five-pence piece having a comparable value, size and weight and later withdrawn from circulation in 1990, when the five pence piece was reduced in size.

Guinea - the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally worth one pound sterling,[1] equal to twenty shillings until 1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings. Following that, Great Britain adopted the gold standard and guinea became a colloquial or specialised term. Although no longer circulated, the term guinea survives in; notably horse racing and the sale of rams, to mean an amount of one pound and one shilling (21 shillings) or one pound and five pence in decimalised currency.