# Currency - 1,2, and 5 **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 22, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035 "2022-09-22T14:08:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/1 "2022-09-22T14:08:13Z")
Currencies around the world normally have coins/notes of values 1, 2, and 5 (with or without one or more zeros added, and some values may be skipped). Exceptions would be Canada and the US which use a 25 cent coin (rather than 20 cents), and no 2 cent coins in recent years. Are there any other (decimal) currencies that vary from the 1, 2, 5 format? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/2 "2022-09-22T14:19:55Z")
If you’ll allow currencies that are no longer in use, the UK pre-decimal system was quite different: 1 pound divided into 240 pennies (pence). 12 pence make a shilling; two shillings make a florin; 5 shillings make a crown. 1 pound and 1 shilling is a guinea. Half a shilling is sixpence; half a crown is 2 shillings and sixpence; half a sixpence is thruppence. A penny was also divided in half (halpenny) and quarter (farthing) - going further back there were halves and thirds of farthings, and groats, which were four pence. ETA: Now I noticed you said decimal. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/3 "2022-09-22T14:31:03Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > ETA: Now I noticed you said decimal. Oh well. For a few years after decimalization the old sixpence was used as a coin with a two and a half new pence value. So that fits the OP’s requirements. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/4 "2022-09-22T14:35:46Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > Are there any other (decimal) currencies that vary from the 1, 2, 5 format? Well, sure. Jordan has 1/4 dinar coins, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/5 "2022-09-22T14:43:28Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > Are there any other (decimal) currencies that vary from the 1, 2, 5 format? [Current Yen coins: 1, 5, 10, 50, etc. – skipping 2.](https://web.archive.org/web/20091018050642/http://www.mint.go.jp/eng/operations/coin/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/6 "2022-09-22T14:46:34Z")
Japan apparently does not have the equivalent of either twenty or twenty-five cent coins. The smallest paper note in Japanese currency is the 1,000 Yen note (equal in value to around seven US dollars). Moving up, Japan has 2000, 5000, and 10000 Yen notes so those match what the OP described. But currently issued Japanese coins are 500 Yen (the equivalent of a half dollar), 100 Yen (a dime), 50 Yen (a nickel), and 10 Yen (a penny), along with 5 and 1 Yen coins. So even if you start from the 1 Yen coin and move up in value, there’s no equivalent of a quarter or twenty-cent piece. Ninja’d (appropriately) by Skywatcher. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/7 "2022-09-22T14:50:38Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > > [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > > > Are there any other (decimal) currencies that vary from the 1, 2, 5 format? > > Well, sure. Jordan has 1/4 dinar coins, for example. How is that different from the American quarter dollar coin? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/8 "2022-09-22T14:56:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Moving up, Japan has 2000, 5000, and 10000 Yen notes so those match what the OP described. And even there, the 2000 yen note is not common. I went on a trip over there, changed some money before hand, and got several of these. They were considered a bit of a curiosity and treated somewhat like $2 here (many of the cash registers I saw didn’t even have a slot for them). I gave several as wedding gifts to some friends, and they asked where I had come across so many. It’s mostly 1-5 over there ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/9 "2022-09-22T14:59:06Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > 1 pound and 1 shilling is a guinea. The craziest coin here is indeed the guinea, amounting to a multiple of 1.05 of the base currency unit. To my knowledge, it is still somewhat in use as an accounting unit in professions where an intermediary brokers a transaction: The buyer pays the purchase price in guineas, but the seller receives the same figure in pounds, amounting, effectively, to a 5 per cent commission added on top of the price. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/10 "2022-09-22T15:04:30Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > [@DPRK](#): > > > > > [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > > > > > Are there any other (decimal) currencies that vary from the 1, 2, 5 format? > > > > Well, sure. Jordan has 1/4 dinar coins, for example. > > How is that different from the American quarter dollar coin? Jordanian coins never followed “1, 2, 5…” exactly, nor American fractions exactly: > Coins were introduced in 1949 in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 fils. The first issue of 1 fils were mistakenly minted with the denomination given as “1 fil”. 20 fils coins were minted until 1965, with 25 fils introduced in 1968 and 1⁄4 dinar coins in 1970. The 1 fils coin was last minted in 1985. In 1996, smaller 1⁄4 dinar coins were introduced alongside 1⁄2 and 1 dinar coins. If I understood that correctly, that leaves current coins as 0.005, 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, 0.50, and 1.00 dinars. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/11 "2022-09-22T15:05:25Z")
Just wanted to point out that in 1875-1878 the United States had a twenty-cent coin. It was unpopular, one reason that it was so close in size to the twenty-five cent coin. And years later the mint put out the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which was…too close in size to the twenty-five cent coin. You might also be interested in the “bit”, from which comes the expression “two bits”. _Nothing to do with the bitcoin,_ it referred to the colonial practice of actually chopping up a dollar coin into eight pie-shaped wedges called bits. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/12 "2022-09-22T16:20:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > … 10 Yen (a penny), along with 5 and 1 Yen coins. What kinds of things are a 1 Yen coin used for? A tenth of a penny is awfully low. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/13 "2022-09-22T16:24:38Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Just wanted to point out that in 1875-1878 the United States had a twenty-cent coin. We also used to have a 3 cent coin. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/14 "2022-09-22T16:30:11Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > You might also be interested in the “bit”, from which comes the expression “two bits”. _Nothing to do with the bitcoin,_ it referred to the colonial practice of actually chopping up a dollar coin into eight pie-shaped wedges called bits. Based on the Spanish 8 _real_ coin, beloved by parrots at seafood restaurant chains. > **[Spanish real](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_real)** > > The real (English: /ɹeɪˈɑl/ Spanish: /reˈal/) (meaning: "royal", plural: reales) was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century. It underwent several changes in value relative to other units throughout its lifetime until it was replaced by the peseta in 1868. The most common denomination for the currency was the silver eight-real Spanish dollar (Real de a 8) or peso which was used throughout Europe, America and Asia during the height of the Spanish Empire. > The f... ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/15 "2022-09-22T16:33:30Z")
I just want to point out the inconsistencies in the current USA denominations: Coins: 25 cents, very common Single-digit dollars: A $2 note exists, but is hardly ever used except in certain businesses. Double-digit dollars: The $20 note is very common. Triple-digit dollars: There’s a $100 note and a $500, but I don’t think there’s ever been anything in between ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/16 "2022-09-22T16:34:20Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > What kinds of things are a 1 Yen coin used for? A tenth of a penny is awfully low. That was a bit of a mistake. A yen is roughly a penny (~140 yen to the dollar at the moment) ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/17 "2022-09-22T17:14:23Z")
The currency of Myanmar had some unusual values in the 1970s, including 15, 35, and 90: [Myanmar kyat - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_kyat) now they use the standard 1,2,5 and multiples ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/18 "2022-09-22T17:47:10Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > We also used to have a 3 cent coin. Yes, but I was pointing out that the United States at one time did have a “multiple” coin that fit the 1,2,5 series mentioned in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/19 "2022-09-22T18:45:17Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Triple-digit dollars: There’s a $100 note and a $500, but I don’t think there’s ever been anything in between There’s not a (current) $500 US bill. Hasn’t been since the 1960s. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035/20 "2022-09-22T18:53:54Z")
But the $10 bill is not as common. They’re not _rare_ or anything, but it’s more common to see $1, $5, and $20. I’ve never quite understood why. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/currency-1-2-and-5/972035.md?page=2)