Pound Sterling

The pound sterling (symbol: £; ISO code:

GBP), often simply called the pound, is thecurrency of the

United Kingdom, its Crown dependencies (the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) and the

British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory. It is

subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny).

The Gibraltar pound, Falkland Islands pound and Saint Helena pound are separate

currencies, pegged to the pound sterling.

Sterling is the third-largest reserve currency, after the US

dollar and the euro. The pound sterling is also the fourth-most-

traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the US dollar, the euro, and the

Japanese yen.

The full, official name, pound

sterling, (plural: pounds sterling) is used mainly in formal contexts and also when it is necessary to distinguish the

United Kingdom currency from othercurrencies with the same name. Otherwise the term pound is normally used.

The currency name is sometimes abbreviated to just sterling, particularly in the wholesale financial markets, but

not when referring to specific amounts; for example, "Payment is accepted in sterling" but never "These cost five sterling". The

abbreviations "ster." or "stg." are sometimes used. The term British pound is

commonly used in less formal contexts, although it is not an official name of the currency. A common slang term is quid

(singular and plural) which is thought to derive from the Latin

phrase "quid pro quo".

There is some uncertainty as to the origin of the term "pound sterling". Some sources say it dates back to

Anglo-Saxon times, when coins called sterlings were minted from silver; 240 of these sterlings weighed one pound,

and large payments came to be made in "pounds of sterlings". Other references, including the Oxford English Dictionary, say a

sterling was a silver penny used in England by the Normans, and date the term to around 1300. For more discussion of the

etymology of "sterling" see Sterling silver.

The currency sign is the pound

sign, originally ₤ with two cross-bars, now more commonly £with a single cross-bar – this is the

style used on sterling bank notes. The pound sign derives from the blackletter "L", an

abbreviation of Librae in Roman £sd units (librae, solidi, denarii) used for pounds, shillings and pence in the British pre-decimal

duodecimal currency system.Libra was the basic Roman unit of weight, derived from the Latin

word for scales or balance.

The ISO 4217 currency code is GBP. Occasionally, the abbreviation UKP is used but

this is incorrect because the ISO 3166 country code for (the

United Kingdom of) Great Britain and Northern Ireland is GB (see Terminology of the British Isles#Terminology in detail).

The Crown dependencies use their own (non-ISO) codes: GGP (Guernsey pound),

JEP (Jersey pound) and IMP (Isle of Man pound). Stocks are

often traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX (sometimes GBp), when listing stock prices.

Decimal

Since decimalisation in 1971, the pound has been divided into 100 pence (until 1981 described on the coinage as "new pence"). The symbol for the penny is "p"; hence an amount such as 50p (£0.50) properly pronounced "fifty pence" is more colloquially, quite often, pronounced "fifty pee". This also helped to distinguish between new and old pence amounts during the changeover to the decimal system.

Pre-decimal

The Mad Hatter's hat shows an example of the old pre-decimal system

Prior to decimalisation, the pound was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling into 12 pence, making 240 pence to the pound. The symbol for the shilling was "s" — not from the first letter of the word, but from the Latin solidus. The symbol for the penny was "d", from the French denier, from the Latin denarius (the solidus and denarius were Roman coins). A mixed sum of shillings and pence such as 3 shillings and 6 pence was written as "3/6" or "3s 6d" and spoken as "three and six". 5 shillings was written as "5s" or, more commonly, "5/-". The stroke, /, indicating shillings, was originally an adaptation of the long s.

Various coin denominations had, and in some cases continue to have, special names — such as "crown", "farthing", "sovereign" and "guinea". See Coins of the pound sterling and List of British coins and banknotes for details.

By the 1950s King William IV coins had disappeared from circulation, but coins bearing the heads of any British king or queen from Queen Victoria on could be found in circulation. Commonly collected by people saving up sums of money were:

Ship halfpennies: ½d coins with a sailing ship on the reverse instead of Britannia.

Bun pennies: pennies of Queen Victoria showing her hair at the back arranged in a bun shape.