"d" survives in the USA in nail sizes.
"In the United States, the length of a nail is designated by its penny size, written with a number and the abbreviation d for penny; for example, 10d for a ten-penny nail."
"Penny sizes originally referred to the price for a hundred nails in England in the 15th century: the larger the nail, the higher the cost per hundred."
from Nail (fastener) in wikipedia
there was a guinea but I can't remember how much that was
A pound and a shilling. I'm not disputing what bjd said at #20; I may be agreeing with it. I don't know how many shillings made a pound. I remember the guinea only because I bought a coat in London many years ago, and the price was quoted in guineas, which had to be explained to me.
Re what Zenky said at #19, we use "broke" here, too, to mean without any money. Sometimes you hear "I'm flat broke," which I suppose might mean "broker than broke," but "broke" shouldn't need a modifier.
I believe the threepenny in threepenny bit was pronounced thrupnee.
Apparently no one has mentioned simoleons = dollars.
Or benjamins, hundred dollar bills, also known as C-notes.
A grand or G is a thousand dollars. A nickel (the coin worth five cents) is ambiguously either $5 or $500 dollars, and similarly with a dime: $10 or $1000.
I also believe 'Estoy sin un duro,' was used in Spain to mean 'broke'. I think a duro was a 5 peseta coin and so it means I'm without a 5 peseta coin. I'm not sure how accurate I am with this so I'll await the 'real' Spanish speakers to correct me and let us know what they say now the euro is in place?
It's difficult for me to make an accurate translation of estoy sin un duro (or no tengo ni un duro or any other variation of this expression) because my English isn't good enough... I'm not sure if it would be more accurate to translate it as I'm broke or as I'm penniless or as I'm skint or...
A duro was indeed a 5 pesetas coin (more info [here|es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duro_(moneda)]).
I think estoy sin un duro (or no tengo un duro or any other variation of this expression) is still used in colloquial language. There are many words and expressions to talk about money in Spanish but to talk about them would deserve its own thread.
two bits = 25 cents.
Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar,
All for (your team here), stand up and holler
re#23: The guinea in posted prices was the British equivalent to the US$xx.99 - making the price at first glance look lower than it really was.
Now that the Spanish phrase about being without a duro has come up, it reminds me of other ways to say that you're broke in English: "I haven't got a penny," or "I haven't got a dime." Yet another would be "He doesn't have two nickels to rub together," although I think this last expression is usually intended as a kind of mockery, to indicate that someone's taste is for things he can't afford, like "He has Cadillac tastes but a beer pocketbook."
I believe the threepenny in threepenny bit was pronounced thrupnee
There is often a slight hint, or more than a slight hint, of the middle syllable, as also in haipnee for halfpenny, often written ha'penny. For example in the usual tune for the children's nursery rhyme "Christmas is coming, the geese are gettting fat" there are 3 syllables provided for ha'penny. Also note the pronuciation tupnee (with again a hint of a middle syllable) for twopenny, often heard in the combination twopenny-ha'penny, used to mean insignificant, of little value, or, in the case of a person, of little influence, or jumped-up. Plurals are ha'pence, tuppence, thruppence.
As a child, my mother often used to call me "a daft hapeth", as it sounded to me, when I did something silly. It was a long time before I worked out that this was a ha'p'orth, a halfpennyworth.
Edited by: Sir Isaac Newton, master of the Royal Mint