Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 October 15

= October 15 =

Deciphering ancient money value: 2s vid
Hello. I am trying to figure out the meaning of this monetary value: 2s vid. I assume it must be 2 shillings (for the first half), but I am not sure what "vid" means. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.--MarshalN20 ✉ 🕊 05:52, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Six pence. VI in Roman numerals and d for penny from denarius. Rmhermen (talk) 06:05, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Also expressed as 2/6d or a half crown, which is one eighth of a Pound Sterling (or 12½ new pence). See Pre-decimal currency in Britain (before 1971). Alansplodge (talk) 10:20, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Why the mixture of Roman and decimal numerals? Was this a common convention at one time? -- Q Chris (talk) 10:51, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * See £sd. The convention dated back to the 8th century until is was discontinued in the early 1970s. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:53, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Although expressing pence values in Roman numerals is an early modern thing; I don't recall seeing it in 19th century texts and was certainly obsolete in my 1960s schooldays. I suppose it prevented the two being muddled, rather like the military convention that divisions are numbered in Arabic while corps are always numbered in Roman. I couldn't find a reference except: "Up to the seventeenth century, it was common for monetary amounts to be written out using lower case Roman numerals: ixs vjd" from University of Nottingham - Manuscripts and Special Collections - Money. Alansplodge (talk) 12:38, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, good call on the Roman numerals. I was only referring to the £sd convention. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:26, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I thought the j in "ixs vjd" was your typo for i, but I see it's in the source. Roman numerals tells me:
 * Since the Middle Ages, a "j" has sometimes been substituted for the final "i" of a "lower-case" Roman numeral, such as "iij" for 3 or "vij" for 7. This "j" can be considered a swash variant of "i". The use of a final "j" is still used in medical prescriptions to prevent tampering with or misinterpretation of a number after it is written".
 * I had never seen this use of j, and I suspect it's very little known. I'm really surprised it was just used in the source without any explanation. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:07, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If you have a longish memory User:JackofOz, you may recall Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 June 1. Apparently sometimes also in scientific formulae - see Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2018 May 13. Alansplodge (talk) 22:06, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * My footprint is so widely disseminated that I cannot be expected to remember all of my superb contributions to discourse on this esteemed website. :) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:21, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * May your footprint ever prosper. Alansplodge (talk) 11:58, 20 October 2018 (UTC)