Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, United States, and other British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, and from there back to Old Norse, where it means "division".

Slang terms for the old shilling coins include "bob" and "hog". While the derivation of "bob" is uncertain, John Camden Hotten in his 1864 Slang Dictionary says the original version was "bobstick" and wonders if it is connected with Sir Robert Walpole.

One abbreviation for shilling is s (for solidus, see £sd). Often it was represented by a solidus symbol ("/"), which may have originally stood for a long s or ſ, thus 1/9 would be one shilling and ninepence (and equivalent to 21d; the shilling itself was equal to 12d). A price with no pence was sometimes written with a slash and a dash: 11/–.

The solidus symbol is still used for the shilling currency unit in former British East Africa, rather than sh.

During the Great Recoinage of 1816, the mint was instructed to coin one troy pound (weighing 5760 grains) of standard (0.925 fine) silver into 66 shillings, or its equivalent in other denominations. This set the weight of the shilling, and its subsequent decimal replacement 5 new pence coin, at 87.2727 grains or 5.655 grams from 1816 until 1990, when a new smaller 5p coin was introduced.

In the past, the English world has had various myths about the shilling. One myth was that it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere.

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