Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-15/Featured content

Free what?
Any chance that "free reign" could be corrected to "free rein" in this article? The former is a natural mistake to make, but the expression refers back to the days of equestrian transport: keeping a horse on a tight rein meant exercising a lot of control over it, while giving it free rein meant allowing it to do whatever it liked. See, for instance, the Oxford Dictionaries blog on the subject. Thanks-- Ammodramus (talk) 14:27, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * "It was the pesky autocorrect" the editor lied unconvincingly. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 14:53, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Guineas
"Gentlemen were paid in guineas and tradesmen in pounds" is constructing an elaborate theory where none is needed. In the 19th century, items sold at auction were priced in guineas and items sold direct were priced in pounds—when it comes to guineas, the 5% difference between the guinea and the pound is the auctioneers commission (e.g. if something were sold at auction for 100 gns, the seller would receive £100 and the buyer would pay £105). The practice has disappeared for artworks as Sothebys and Christies no longer price in guineas, but it persists at some auctioneers like Tattersalls to this day. – iridescent  09:27, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Payne offered 60 guineas, paid 130 pounds and received 770 guineas. I presume the latter was a direct sale. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 10:24, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The 770 gn was the price paid at auction by Whitworth (18 May 1854), and Payne would have received £770—if you see a price quoted in guineas, it's almost always going to be an auction price. I've no idea why Payne made his original offer in guineas rather than pounds, but have just checked the source and it definitely is. Payne had married into the nobility in 1826 (and inherited Newarke House), so I suspect it was new-money insecurity about how one ought to behave. – iridescent  10:38, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks- I've amended the entry. Just found the bit about Whistler- him versus Leyland over the Peacock Room, but unfortunately the website I found it on doesn't give the source (it claims "[Leyland] insulted Whistler by writing his check in pounds, the currency of trade, when payment to artists and professionals was customarily made in guineas.") Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 10:53, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think Iridescent's statement about "guineas for auctions, pounds for direct sales" is correct. Googling (trollope guinea) and (trollope guineas) turns up a mention in The Eustace Diamonds of horses hired from a livery stable at three guineas, and one in Doctor Thorne in which a character suggests spending fifty guineas on a dressing-case.  Elsewhere in Eustace Diamonds, Lizzie tells Lucy, "I'll give you a hundred-guinea brooch... You shall have the money and buy it yourself".  None of these items, particularly the hired horse, appear to be bought at auction.  I don't have the book at hand, but I believe that Daniel Pool's What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew states that guineas were considered more genteel than pounds.  Ammodramus (talk) 12:01, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The Whistler story came from a biography published probably early 1980s (which is when I read it) but I can't remember which. Payne's wife was dead by 1826 (Elizabeth Towndrow) as he received a grant of arms in memory of her and her father in that year. The way the grant is described in secondary sources seems to suggest that Payne already had arms, and the Towndrows didn't. Not sure about literary evidence, as "I'll give you a hundred-pound brooch..." has a certain weightiness to it… Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 17:08, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, plenty of retail prices were in guineas well into the C19. It was only in 1816-17 that the sovereign coin replaced the guinea (coin). You find an over-average number of prices that are multiples of "21s." well into the 20th century too, mostly in posher contexts, but even for things like books. Only decimalization in 1971, and the inflation of the following years, truly killed the guinea, outside horseracing. Johnbod (talk) 21:01, 20 July 2015 (UTC)