Our Home Renovation

I’ve heard of nails referred to by “pennies” since I was a little kid and somewhere along the way I heard the explanation for that reference. The other day, however, I found myself trying to remember which was bigger, an 8 penny or a 16 penny nail. Somehow I had gotten it switched around in my head. So, I did a quick double-check, figured it out (I’ll never forget again) and thought that there might be others that don’t know the explanation or want a quick refresher.

(That large nail is, I think, a 16d finish nail. It’s the only one I found – they must’ve had a hard time getting that piece of crown to stay up!)

The penny reference goes back a ways, apparently to England. Pennies were sold by the hundred, and the penny reference was how much 100 nails cost. So, 6 penny nails were $.06 per 100. Simple enough.

Curious how I got confused? I was thinking that the penny number was how many you could buy for a penny. Hence, 16 penny nails were 16 for $.01, and 8 penny nails were 8 for $.01 – the bigger the nail, the fewer you get. But that’s wrong, so don’t get that idea in your head or you’ll get confused like me.

But, you say, I’ve heard them referred to as “16d” or “8d”, etc. Apparently (thanks again, Wikipedia!), the ‘d’ stands for denarius, a Roman coin equivalent to today’s penny. In England, ‘d’ was the original symbol for their pence, or penny as we know it here in the USA.

This is a nail that didn’t want to go into the wall, apparently. I thought it was cool. Amazing that they pounded it hard enough to get that whole thing in the crown moulding.