Malta decimal at last

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33816, 12 April 1975, Page 11

Malta decimal at last

By

K. W. ANTHONY)

Just about the last country in the world to go decimal is .Malta, The island's first issue of stamps in decimal currency therefore marks the end of an era — and the beginning of an all-decimal world. Even when Britain and its associated territories took the decimal plunge in February, 1971. Malta carried on with the traditional shillings and pence for a while longer. And it seems that this interval gave Malta the opportunity to learn from the experience in Britain where the new system of

100 pence to the £ has been widely criticised as too inflexible. , Though adopting a basically similar scheme. Malta has taken it a little further, dividing the Ma tese £ not only into 100

mixtun o! the British and Arab s\ stems devised an ingenious people familiar with the t rat mg on the new stamps the new com* ot corresponding value. over the past 30 years, as indicates, but its origins go back much further than that. Mans countries (such as the United States and France) have bad decimal currency since long before the stamp era But it comes as a surprise to some people to learn that Canada's early stamps were valued in old pence, which gave wav to cents and dollars in 1859. Cey lon issued pence stamps for some years before going decimal as long ago as 1872. Among foreign countries. too, some of the earliest stamps recall old currencies, which in some dieval times. It was only the unification of Germany, in 1870, that introduced the familiar 100 pfennigs to the mark; before then the former German states variously issued stamps in kreuzer. grote, groschen and such forgotten coinage. When Denmark's first stamps were issued in 1851, the daler (the main currency unit) consisted of the curious number of 96 skilling. Three years later this was changed, when the daler. even more surprisingly, became worth 92 skilling! The decimal currency of 100 ore to the krone, so familiar on modern Danish stamps, did not come in until 1875. One of the most intcrI esting aspects of 'tamp , collecting is the insight it ’ gives into the devel- ’ opment of the world's r currencies — and Malta's " new decimal stamps, ‘ issued in May 1972, represent the latest instal- ’ ment of the storv.

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