Why are horses sold in guineas?

Question

what's the history of this?

Answer 1

Miss Newmarket is spot on as usual but it should be added that lawyers and some other professions charged in guineas until relatively recently.

A guinea was worth one pound and one shilling, and the odd shilling was usually the salesman or broker's commission.

Therefore, if you bought a house for 4,000 guineas, the vendor would get £4,000 and the solicitor would get 4,000 shillings (£200) (in the blissful days before estate agents).

Answer 2

As has already been said, the Guinea was the standard currency for buying and selling horses hundreds of years ago.

I believe that Tattersalls in Newmarket are the only major sales company that still sell in Guineas.  Doncaster now sell in sterling and I am not sure about Brightwells at Ascot.

The other sales companies sell in their own currency, Euro, Dollars, Yen, etc.

A Guinea is worth about £1.05 and Tattersalls keep the 5p as commission.  Therefore a horse selling for 1 million Guineas will gain the seller £1 million and Tattersalls will have £50,000.

Answer 3

ASK W.S.P.A. LOL

I thought guineas meant pigs ?//

guinea pigs

My son has one

Answer 4

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the "guinea" ,at least among the aristocracy ,was the preferred currency. A guinea was the equivalent of one pound and one shilling or twenty one shillings.The practise of buying race horses in guineas is a hangover from that time .There are two famous horse races ,The Thousand and the Two Thousand Guineas .

Answer 5

Guineas is an old coin issued in England from 1663-1813 and worth and worth one pound and one shilling.  They used guineas to buy race horses and rams in that day.