3 weeks ago
6
Continuing on money matters (C8 last week), it seems most C8-ers consider the guinea to be bordering on fraud, used almost solely for mark-ups. Mark Berg of Caringbah South says, “I believe that a guinea at £1 and 1 shilling was used mainly in the auctioneering trade as it included the 5 per cent buyer’s premium for the auction house. I think the buyer’s premium is now much more. That is why horse, art, house and car auctions were always conducted in guineas. Maybe some of those posh businesses charged in guineas to include a mark-up on their fees.” How cynical we are.
Daniel Flesch of Bellingen thinks, “Surely the present-day equivalent of yesteryear’s guineas is the practice of vendors advertising goods at a number of dollars and 99 cents. Fuel prices displayed by servos a prime example, along with multiples of retail prices.” In other words, anything to make a buck.
Nicolas Harrison of Evans Head says: “Barristers’ robes today have a stylised pouch with ribbon on the back of the left shoulder. When I started wearing my robes (more than 50 years ago) I was told it was a replica of a cloth purse into which the poor punter would drop the guineas owed. This ensured the barrister did not soil their hands by touching the filthy lucre.”
Tim Ingall of Scottsdale in Arizona was just annoyed by the guinea. “While guineas may have been associated with a degree of snobbery, what I remember is that mathematics problems involving multiplying or dividing amounts of money using guineas were a right royal pain. The transition to dollars and cents was a godsend.”
On to less fiscal subjects, Roberta Madsen of Gymea Bay replies to Michael Fischer’s question about Jock Fraser. “My father was the great Jock Fraser, teacher of geography and economics at Fort Street Boys, deputy then later principal at Mosman High School. In 1975, at the time of his political collision, he was principal at Bankstown Boys High, driving the long road home to Cremorne.” Col8, who attended Mosman High at the time, remembers Mr Fraser, who was known as Fang (behind his back, of course) but now has no memory of why.
Then back to lookalikes. Nola Tucker of Kiama maintains that “surely the most credible doppelganger is our Malcolm Fraser? Some years ago we entered the Louvre by a ‘back door’, to be confronted by statues taken from Easter Island. We were stunned by what had to be a portrayal of our Malcolm wearing his ‘stoniest’ expression. That is fame!”
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