A Project of the Robert H. Gore, Jr. Numismatic Endowment University of Notre Dame, Department of Special Collections

by Louis Jordan Images Coordinated by

James C. Spilman and the Colonial Newsletter Foundation

https://coins.nd.edu/ColCurrency/index.html

However, lets try a specific example. In 1693 in New York City a store clerk was paid 1 shilling per day (while a doctor was paid 2 shillings). This means that 50 shillings was about two months wages at that time. The best way to convert that into today's money is probably to use a basic clerks wages from your area. In 1693 New York was not a major city as it is today so current New York City wages would not give you a good comparison.

You may also be interested to know that British colonial subjects rarely had British silver coins available (it was against the law in Britain to export British silver coinage). Most coinage was in the form of Spanish Silver pieces of eight (called a Spanish dollar). This coin was valued ay 8 shilling in New York. Soon after 1700 most colonies stated printing paper money (New York began in 1709) and most transactions were made using paper money shillings. Our currency site has many examples of colonial paper money.

For your information 20 shillings was equal to one pound. Most people counted money by crowns, with a crown being equal to 5 shillings. In fact a 10 shilling note will often have a picture of two royal crowns while a 30 shilling note will have six crowns. This helped people who could not read be sure of the value of their money. If you see in our Pennsylvania currency on our site https://coins.nd.edu/ColCurrency/CurrencyText/PA-06-18-64.html you will see four crowns above the British seal, to show this 20s note was worth 4 crowns.