History
The livre was the currency of Jersey until 1834. It consisted of French coins which, in the early 19th century, were exchangeable for sterling at a rate of 26 livres = 1 pound. After the livre was replaced by the franc in France in 1795, the supply of coins in Jersey dwindled leading to difficulties in trade and payment. In 1834, an Order in Council adopted the pound sterling as Jersey's sole official legal tender, although French copper coins continued to circulate alongside British silver coins, with 26 sous equal to the shilling. Because the sous remained the chief small-change coins, when a new copper coinage was issued for Jersey in 1841, it was based on a penny worth 1⁄13 of a shilling, the equivalent of 2 sous. This system continued until 1877, when a penny of 1⁄12 of a shilling was introduced.
Along with the rest of the British Isles, Jersey decimalized in 1971 and began issuing a full series of circulating coins from ½p to 50p. £1 and £2 denominations followed later.
As of December 2005, there was £64.7m of Jersey currency in circulation. A profit of £2.8m earned on the issue of Jersey currency was received by the Treasurer of the States in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Jersey Pound
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)