Todd

As Garin has said, there used to be 240 pennies to the pound and then, after decimalisation, there were 100 pennies to the pound.

You could then have half pennies which, clearly. were 2 the penny. And so 480 half pennies in a pound pre-decimalisation and 200 to the pound from decimalisation (as indeed there are 200 half cents in a dollar, just because there is no half cent coin would not negate that fact). The half penny coin was introduced with decimalisation but phased out some time ago as it became too small to have any use.

And just to make it even more fun, pre-decimalisation we also had a farthing which was 1/4 of a penny and so 960 of those to a pound!

The advantage was of course that you could divide a shilling with 12 pennies into half, third, quarter or sixth without the need for fractions. But decimalisation slowly took a hold and the end was always coming. I of course am too young to remember any of this

Jason