A sixpence was a small silver coin used in Britain that was worth six pennies, or half of a shilling. For centuries, carrying a sixpence in your pocket meant you had enough money to buy a loaf of bread, a newspaper, or a cup of tea.

The coin appears throughout British literature and culture. In the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” the king counts out his money in these coins. In the film Mary Poppins, the father wants his children to invest their tuppence (two pennies) at the bank, but a sixpence would have been worth three times as much. British brides traditionally tucked a sixpence into their shoe on their wedding day for good luck and prosperity.

Britain stopped making sixpences in 1967, and the coin stopped being used as money in 1980, after the country switched to decimal currency, where everything is divided evenly by tens instead of the old system of twelve pennies to a shilling. Today, people collect old sixpences as historical artifacts, though a few elderly Britons still remember using them to buy sweets at the corner shop when they were children.