Today’s banknotes come from Jason Skinner. He sent 2 (very nice sequentially numbered) five pound notes to me for club magazines. THANK YOU very much Jason! Let’s talk about them:

The Pound Sterling is the fourth most traded currency in the world, behind the U.S. Dollar, the Euro, and the Japanese Yen.

The name pound sterling is believed to have come from Anglo-Saxon times where coins called sterling’s were minted from silver and 240 coins weighed a pound. Large payments were in ‘pounds’ of these coins. The formal name Pounds Sterling is seldom used and has been replaced with simply ‘Pounds.’ The currency has picked up the slang term “Quid” which is speculated to have come from the shortened Latin phrase ‘Quid pro quo.”

The currency unit is the pound sign (£), which is usually written with a single cross-bar, as on sterling bank notes, though other versions with a double cross-bar (₤) is also sometimes seen. The pound sign comes from the letter "L", which is an abbreviation of Librae in Roman £sd units (librae, solidi, denarii) was 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.

Prior to decimalization a pound was divided into 20 Shillings with each Shilling worth 12 Pence. The symbol for Shilling is “s.” 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" (except for "1/1," "2/1" etc., which were spoken as "one and a penny," "two and a penny," etc.). 5 shillings was written as "5s." or, more commonly, "5/-". Other special denominations included crown, farthing, sovereign, guinea, half penny as well as the sixpence. All of these are very interesting and each have a story, but that is for another day.

These notes shown today were issued by the Governor and company of the Bank of England on 2002.

Design of the note:
(Front) Features a large denomination at the upper left corner and a smaller number at the upper right corner. A large portrait of Queen Elizabeth at right with vertically printed serial number. At left center is a foil holographic image with a horizontally printed serial number. The hologram shows a brightly colored Britannia then when tilted shows the number five. The international copyright symbol is printed on both sides near the watermark. The watermark is the mirror image of the Queen as seen in the portrait. The note has raised printing, a metallic thread, micro-printing, and UV markings for security purposes.

(Back) - Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845).m
The images on the back of the note are related to the life and work of this social reformer. The main illustration shows Elizabeth Fry reading to prisoners at Newgate. In recognition of her work she was awarded the key to the prison and this is used in the design of the banknote.

The pound sterling is trading today at:
1 GBP to 1.58608 USD (Feb 21, 2012)

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[redENJOY!!

NOTE: I had to use a stock scan as my Epson scanner recognized this note and refused to scan a banknote.