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Message:: [QUOTE="afantiques, post: 2428108, member: 71234"]THe pound was a rather large amount, and there were plenty of crowns  at 4 to the pound if you wanted to pay in silver. Generally the gold 'piece' as Samuel Pepys refers to it was the guinea. In practice the nominal 20/- value of the Guinea was often at a small premium for its portability, Pepys would sometines have to pay 6d or 1/- extra for gold  pieces to keep his hoard to a reasonable size. Hence the guinea soon became worth more than its nominal value, and after 60 years it was redefined as 21/-. None the less, it was a pound coin. There was no pound coin called 'a pound coin' till 1971. The sovereign was referred to as just that , a sovereign, not a pound, though a ten pound purchase could be made with a 5 pound note and 5 sovs without anyone batting an eye or thinking it strance. Since the purchasing power of gold coins was so high, no one really cared much about matematical convenience, since few would ever deal in them. It should also be noted that British weights and measures are noted for their eccentricity, the lack of a one pound nominal value coin until 1820 was nothing out of the ordinary, and of course, calling the coin a pound would far too simple.. In international trade, the weight of gold was more important than the nominal denomination, traders would have coin weights equivalent to all the common gold coins and the uncommon ones would be tested and weighed to get a value.[/QUOTE]