old money

[emmalee]

Me again, last one, confusing me because it should have a value of 10s.

fifty percent of panties?

 

Thanks again

[shaneystar]

Half a Knicker.
A knicker was a pound and 10 shillings half that amount hence the above expression.

[shaneystar]

Perhaps I should mention that this was cockney rhyming slang.Alan Whicker....Knicker.

[THECORBYLOON]

I know that half a knicker is ten bob but what's Alan Whicker got to do wi it?

[shaneystar]

Well it's rhyming slang!!
Knicker.....Whicker!!
I was brought uo when we still had farthings!

[ipek]

Sorry to be pedantic guys, but whilst Alan Whicker may be rhyming slang for knicker, it doesn't explain why 'knicker' (or nicker) means a pound.  This was certainly around well before Mr W!

Having trolled the net for an explanation, seems it has been lost to obscurity - here's the nearest info I can find:

.......but a rather older term, which has become less common recently and has much stronger London associations, is nicker. This dates from early this century (it explains that terrible old joke: �Why can�t a one-legged woman change a pound note? Because she�s only got half a (k)nicker!�) and which nobody seems to know the origin of.

[johnalex]

Hope this helps folks:

NICKER = a pound (�1) Not pluralised for a number of pounds, eg., 'It only cost me twenty nicker..' From the early 1900's, London slang, precise origin unknown. Possibly connected to the use of nickel in the minting of coins, and to the American slang use of nickel to mean a $5 dollar note, which at the late 1800's was valued not far from a pound. In the US a nickel is more commonly a five cent coin. A nicker bit is a one pound coin, and London cockney rhyming slang uses the expression 'nicker bits' to describe a case of diarrhoea.