I have been wanting to get a better understanding of the actual use of coins and banknotes at various points and places in history, particularly late 19th/early 20th century Britain. Questions like: at what point did crowns stop circulating? How commonly did gold sovereigns and half sovereigns circulate? What could you buy with a shilling in, say, 1920? When did personal checks/cheques come into play for making larger purchases? I was sorting through my UK swap coins the other day, and added them up on a whim, and found that I have over £7 in predecimal coins. It made me wonder how much that was worth in its day, and what kind of things these coins were actually spent on when they held actual monetary value.
And so on. I do have the Spink catalog which has some tidbits of information in this direction, but rather limited and dry. I'm wondering if anyone has written a book or website discussing this kind of "social history". How were coins and notes actually used in day to day life? I'm particularly interested in the British history, but anything along these lines would be interesting to me.
The history of the evasion coins and the conder tokens is an interesting coin related topic to look up. I'm not sure of any books but there are plenty of on-line resources to read.
Oh, the Eaton's Catalogue, I'll have to take a browse through that. When I was a kid we had a reprint of a Sears Roebuck & Co catalog from around 1890 that was full of fascinating things.
