1905 British currency adding machine - GIF

[mklotz]

In 1966 Australia converted to metric currency (dollars and cents) and the conversions were published - one pence equated to a cent, a florin to 20c, etc. Problem was a florin was worth 24p, so some smart cookies converted their savings to pence, then converted the p to c, and then back up to dollars - didn't take long for the government and banks to stop that, but it shows how hard it was to do a conversion easily and correctly.

A bottom-up conversion (1 d = 1 c) seems wrong. The fundamental unit of currency was the pound, not the pence.

If they had used a top-down conversion starting with 1 £ = 1 $, then a florin (0.1 £) would have become 10 cents.

How did the British do it when they converted?

(Incidentally, you didn't convert to "metric" currency, you converted to "decimal" currency.)