The guinea was in fact legal tender until decimalisation in 1971, although would rarely be used as direct payment in the latter years and had not been minted since 1813.
This determined the value of gold of a certain weight and grade, and the guinea was proclaimed to have a face value of One Pound and One Shilling, which is still applied to it today. In 1717, after many years of fluctuation in the value of a guinea – which must have caused headaches for traders accepting them as payment – the UK adopted the Gold Standard. The guinea began as a coin with a value of 20 shillings – as the pound is today – but fluctuations in the price of gold meant its value varies.įor example, in 1667, the famous diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the guinea as having a value of 24 or 25 shillings. One such is the Guinea, a gold coin – the first to be pressed in gold in Britain – that was first seen in 1663, and was replaced by the pound in 1816.
The history of UK coinage is full of interesting examples that are no longer in circulation. It was struck from gold and if you have a gold guinea, it’s value is linked to the current price of gold. The guinea is a coin that held a face value of One pound and One shilling (£1.05p in decimal currency) but, at different times in history, was worth more or even less.
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