Decimalising money in Potterverse

The simple act of counting one’s money has always been a pleasure, but until recently it was also a pain. There used to be 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound and 21 shillings to the guinea in the United Kingdom; 3 pais to a pice, 4 pice to an anna and 16 annas to the rupee in India; and 8 reales or bits to the Spanish dollar or piece-of-eight in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas. Needless to say, all this was a pig’s breakfast of factors and multipliers until governments finally came to their senses and decimalised everything in sight, so now we can work with a hundred pence, paise, or cents.

All governments except the rather stodgy UK Ministry of Magic, which still has 29 knuts to the sickle and 17 sickles to the galleon. It does not bother the majority of their electorate, who can handle the calculations with elementary school magic, but it is a serious hindrance to squibs, merpeople and centaurs, not to mention the rare instances of muggle-wizard trade.

It is proposed that all the money in the UK magical community be accounted for in knuts at the present rates (1 galleon = 17 sickles = 493 knuts) and this situation be remedied with the following new rates:

5 old knuts = 1 new knut, or ‘knew’ (pronounced ‘canoe’)

100 knews = 1 new galleon (‘galley’)

The sickle is the most convenient and widely circulated of the three old coins; rare is the occasion for using knuts or galleons alone, while so many merchants have adopted the merciful practice of quoting prices in full sickles. We propose a unit close in value to the old sickle to replace it.

5 knews = 1 new sickle (‘knickle’)

We recommend the following coins be circulated: 1 knew (Ç0.01, bronze), 1 knickle (Ç0.05, bronze with silver rim), 5 knickles (Ç0.25, all silver), and 1 galley (Ç1.00, gold).

As for exchange rates against Muggle money, we are of the opinion that Ç1 = £5 should be targeted, but of course, Gringott’s practises an independent monetary policy.