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this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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chapotraphouse
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It honestly seems insane to me that £3 then equals £418 now. But apparently the farthing was 1/960 of a pound so it's not like they were too limited on dividing it. I guess it's easier to think of the penny (or maybe the shilling?) as their "base unit" the same we way might consider the pound or dollar as the base.
But then I look at US inflation (where by that point the penny was the lowest denomination) and it looks $3 then is about $65 today so there's a huge gap there. I can't find what the exchange rate was at the time though.
Oh god I finally understand the name penny farthing
The UK government deliberately devalued the pound a couple of times, we had the great depression significantly devalue the pound, and the 70s&80s were sustained periods of high inflation.
Bretton-Woods and some shenanigans with the UKs war debt devalued it significantly against the dollar multiple times.