* Nickel brass is composed of 70 % copper, 24. 5 % zinc and 5. 5 % nickel used to make pound coins in the pound sterling currency.

Pre-decimalisation, the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland used a mixed duodecimal-vigesimal currency system ( 12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings or 240 pence to the pound sterling or Irish pound ), and Charlemagne established a monetary system that also had a mixed base of twelve and twenty, the remnants of which persist in many places.

Thomas ' pound sterling | £ 5 writing shed in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire

The islands use the Falkland pound, which is backed by sterling.

In 1967 the Holt government made the historic decision not to depreciate the Australian dollar in line with Britain's depreciation of the pound sterling, a custom that Australia had previously always followed, but this decision created considerable dissent within the Coalition ; Country Party leader John McEwen was particularly angered by the move — he saw it as a threat to Australia's balance of payments and feared that it would lead to increased production costs for primary industry.

The name of the pound sterling (£) reflects the fact it originally represented the value of one pound Tower weight of sterling silver ; other historical currencies, such as the French livre, have similar etymologies.

In " The Adventure of the Priory School ", Holmes rubs his hands with glee when the Duke of Holdernesse notes the 6, 000 pound sterling sum, which surprises even Watson, and then pats the cheque, saying, " I am a poor man ", an incident that could be dismissed as representative of Holmes's tendency toward sarcastic humour.

Instead, the island uses the United Kingdom issue of the pound sterling.

Historical conversions between currencies are based on the nominal gold standards of each currency: one gold mark ≡ kg pure gold ; one pound sterling ≡ 113 grains pure gold ; one U. S. dollar ≡ grains gold at fineness (= 23. 22 grains pure gold ).

It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U. S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling ..

Less than two years later on the infamous Black Wednesday of September 1992, the pound sterling crashed out of the system after the pound fell below the agreed exchange rate with the Deutsche Mark.

* September 19 – The United Kingdom government devalues the pound sterling from $ 4. 03 to $ 2. 80, leading to many other currencies being devalued.

* September 16 – Black Wednesday: The pound sterling and the Italian lira are forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

In 1898, British India pegged the silver rupee to the pound sterling at a fixed rate of 1s 4d, while in 1906, the Straits Settlements adopted a gold exchange standard against the pound sterling with the silver Straits dollar being fixed at 2s 4d.

Some territories outside the United Kingdom, that use the pound sterling, produce their own coinage, with the same denominations and specifications as the UK coinage but local designs.

British government sources suggest that prices have risen over 61-fold since 1914, so a mediæval sterling silver penny might have the equivalent purchasing power of around £ 4. 50 today, and a farthing ( a quarter penny ) would have the value of slightly more than today's pound ( about £ 1. 125 ).

He would sit inside the coffee shop and pound a gloved fist upon the table and a girl would hear him and come running, bowing with her running, calling out in her bowing, `` At your service ''.

“ An ‘ aypenny a lot ing-uns .” “ Twopence a pound grapes .” “ Three a penny Yarmouth bloaters .” “ Who ‘ ll buy a bonnet for fourpence ?” “ Pick ‘ em out cheap here!

As for the grain, he says, – since they have no pure sunshine – they pound it out in large storehouses, after first gathering in the ears thither ; for the threshing floors become useless because of this lack of sunshine and because of the rains.

For all these units, the word " force " is often left out, for example abbreviating " pound-force-foot " to simply " pound-foot " ( in this case, it would be implicit that the " pound " is pound-force and not pound-mass ).

This instability was enhanced by gold flows out of England, with its overvalued pound, to other countries such as France, which was attempting to make Paris a world class financial center, in competition with London and New York.

The currency of Biafra had been the Nigerian pound, until the Bank of Biafra started printing out its own notes, the Biafran pound.

Separately, George H. Hoyt created Wheatena circa 1879, during an era when retailers would typically buy cereal ( the most popular being cracked wheat, oatmeal, and cerealine ) in barrel lots, and scoop it out to sell by the pound to customers.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger attends the judging for the under 200 pound class in order to scope out who his competition will be for the overall Mr. Olympia title, jokingly disparaging Columbu.

By sniffing out the right spots and performing a ground pound, Yoshi may uncover hidden melons and coins that will aid in boosting the player's score.

It took the Commissioners two years to agree who should carry out the work, but on 22 June 1758, John Smith jnr from Attercliffe, Yorkshire was contracted to construct 20 pound locks, 20 horse haling bridges and various other works at a cost of £ 14, 070.

The evening before Al-Sistani arrived in the city, two F-16's, flying out of Balad, dropped four two-thousand pound JDAMs ( Joint Direct Attack Munitions ) on two hotels in close proximity to the Imam Ali Shrine.

He also had cargo rollers installed leading to the loading door ; 250 pound bombs could be thus be rolled out the door while in flight.

The latter were used as improvised gunships / bombers, being armed with 50 caliber machine guns and equipped with a roller system to trundle 250 pound bombs out the cargo door during flight.

He also pointed out that with 150 foot ( 45 m ) high walls made of masonry at least 10 feet ( 3 m ) thick, there was no practical means for field engineers to deal with the place, and that bombing with " blockbuster " bombs would be the only solution since 1, 000 pound bombs would be " next to useless ".

When Troy weights replaced Tower weights in 1527, the Troy weights were defined in such a way that the old Tower pound came out to exactly 5400 Troy grains ( also known as barleycorns ), the Tower pennyweight 22 Troy grains ( and thus approximately 1. 46 grams ).

At the pound, the other dogs admire Lady's license, as it is her way out of the pound.

These people are ill affected towards the English, by reason of one Hunt, a master of a ship, who deceived the people, and got them under color of trucking with them, twenty out of this very place where we inhabit, and seven men from Nauset, and carried them away, and sold them for slaves like a wretched man ( for twenty pound a man ) that cares not what mischief he doth for his profit.

When given bad news, he has a tendency to, on his way out, pound his fist against a certain spot of wall near the office door.

However, later commentators have been less kind to Maudling: Harold Wilson and his Chancellor Jim Callaghan ( who nevertheless sounded out Maudling for the governorship of the Bank of England in 1966 ) blamed the " dash for growth " that followed the 1963 budget for increasing pound sterling's chronic instability between 1964 and 1967 and by greatly increasing domestic demand the budget certainly exacerbated the existing balance of payments problem.

Britain's initial 44 million pound resettlement grant, which ran out by 1988, formally expired in 1996.

On standard UK and some European keyboards, the same keystrokes produce the pound currency symbol (< tt >£</ tt >), and < tt >#</ tt > is moved to a separate key above the right shift.

The British pound derived from the Roman libra, which is why the pound ( mass ) is often initialised to ' lb '; along with the French livre and the Italian lira, when, during Middle Ages the European countries adopted the LSD system.

In politics and economics, Black Wednesday refers to the events of 16 September 1992 when the British Conservative government was forced to withdraw the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism ( ERM ) after they were unable to keep it above its agreed lower limit.

The European Exchange Rate Mechanism finally broke the one-for-one link that existed between the Irish pound and the pound sterling ; by 30 March 1979 the parity link between the two currencies was broken and an exchange rate was introduced.

On 31 December 1998, the exchange rates between the European Currency Unit and the Irish pound and 10 other EMS currencies ( all but the pound sterling, the Swedish krona and the Danish krone ) were fixed.

As the European sovereign debt crisis continued through 2011, rumours of a possible return to the Irish pound were circulating.

The bank was the issuer of Irish pound banknotes and coinage until the introduction of the euro currency, and now provides this service for the European Central Bank.

After two Luftwaffe 800 pound bombs damaged Broadcasting House on 8 December 1940, the BBC European Service moved into the South-East Wing of the building ; the rest of the Overseas Service followed in 1958.

Over the next year, Royce Gracie continued fighting in the UFC, obtaining submission wins over fighters such as Patrick Smith, 250 pound ( 113 kg ) European Judo Champion Remco Pardoel, and Kimo Leopoldo.

On the other hand, British government policy in the period before the ejection of the pound sterling from the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System had been widely criticised for providing speculators with a one-way bet.

The weak pound ( a result of the energy crisis ) and the increasing cost of importing Chevrolet V8 engines caused some concern and engine regulations for European F5000 were revised to permit engines other than the 5. 0 litre pushrod V8s-the DOHC Cosworth GA V6 ( based on a unit used in Group 2 Capris was permitted to race at a capacity of 3500cc.

There were versions that had the various national code sets for different European countries to enable pound signs, and various accented characters, etc.

Tests of UIRP for economies experiencing institutional regime changes, using monthly exchange rate data for the US dollar versus the Deutsche mark and the Spanish peseta versus the British pound, have found some evidence that UIRP held when US and German regime changes were volatile, and held between Spain and the United Kingdom particularly after Spain joined the European Union in 1986 and began liberalizing capital mobility.