I’ll apologise first for taking up your time, but we are working in Japan and it is difficult to access a good English language bookshop. (By the way, I showed my Japanese university students the first Sharpe DVD as an amusing way to extend their English. I’m now having to show the entire series in monthly sessions! More fans and well deserved.) I wonder if you could help us with research about English money from 1800-1816 when finally the mess was sorted out and sovereigns were first issued. Do you know, thanks to all that research for the Sharpe books, a good reference source? A couple of my American friends here are writing historical romances set in 1805 and 1810. They insist that one and two pound notes were in common use (they’ve been reading the Old Bailey records on-line)and so when people talked about money, like making a bet, or buying things, they did so with pounds. I thought it was guineas. We’d be really be grateful to find a good reference source. We have tried to find books but apart from Ken Elks’ ‘History of Coins’ we are not having much luck.
Pdr Lindsay-Salmon