# Dollars and dimes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [October 29, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056 "2015-10-29T04:00:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/61 "2015-11-22T02:37:29Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > That’s the reason they don’t make US $500 bills or anything larger. Personally, I think they should make a US $200 bill. It would be a new denomination since they’ve never made one before. > > Actually, that would round down to $.95. A 98 cent wingnut would round up. It doesn’t matter. I think the fear of many opponents of eliminating the penny is that all prices ending between the nickels would usually or always be rounded up; in that scenario .96 and .97 would both be rounded up to a dollar. ---
**Author:** ![eastcheap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@eastcheap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eastcheap)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/62 "2015-11-22T15:30:20Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Alas, Americans have never been completely rational about money. > > But, notice what was done when a new currency was designed from scratch, in the modern era, for the Eurozone. The denominations are, 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.50, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 Praise for division of the Euro has to be tempered by the fact that a decision was made to create a new, divisible currency at par with the ECU (based on a basket of inflation-shrunken currencies) in the first place. IMO, it would have made more sense to set it at some fraction of an ECU and leave it at that. I.e., just do away with fractions entirely. Of course, there would have been riots… ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/63 "2015-11-22T16:22:47Z")
> [@eastcheap](#): > > IMO, it would have made more sense to…just do away with fractions entirely. My point there has to do with the relationship between denominations. It would be exactly the same, mathematically, if the denominations were 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, 20000, 50000. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/64 "2015-11-22T17:49:39Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > But little evidence to back up that theory. Really? Didn’t know that. I know you’re a word guy, what are the best theories for the origin of _Dixie_? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/65 "2015-11-23T00:17:18Z")
British coinage is now 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, and £2, with (occasionally) £5, £10, £20, and £100. (The original decimalization coinage included ½p, but that was withdrawn in the 80s.) ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/66 "2015-11-24T01:09:49Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Really? Didn’t know that. > > I know you’re a word guy, what are the best theories for the origin of _Dixie_? See post #50. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/67 "2015-11-24T10:02:19Z")
> [@eastcheap](#): > > Less rare than twos, I guess. I literally can’t remember the last time I saw a fifty. Even when I transfer mediumish amounts from one bank to another (something I prefer to do in cash to avoid EFT- and cashier’s check annoyances), they give me 100s and 20s. I see $50s and $2s frequently. If you work in retail and especially if you have state lottery machines, you will see a fair number of $50s and $100s go by. Twos I buy from the bank to give as tips. Unlike $100s and $50, they rarely come from customers. > [@](#): > > Retailers love $X.99 pricing. Actually they’d just as soon not do X.99 pricing. But they’ve found that they lose sales if they don’t. Cecil did a [column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/720/why-do-prices-end-in-99) on it, but only discussed the origin, not why it’s nearly universal. > [@eastcheap](#): > > Praise for division of the Euro has to be tempered by the fact that a decision was made to create a new, divisible currency at par with the ECU (based on a basket of inflation-shrunken currencies) in the first place. IMO, it would have made more sense to set it at some fraction of an ECU and leave it at that. I.e., just do away with fractions entirely. > > Of course, there would have been riots… They deliberately set the Euro to be just over the value of the US dollar at the time. It was a psychological thing, but for the bankers. I don’t think they cared what the average person on the street thought. After all, many of the currencies it replaced were valued at less than a dollar. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/68 "2015-11-24T10:45:55Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > It doesn’t matter. I think the fear of many opponents of eliminating the penny is that all prices ending between the nickels would usually or always be rounded up; in that scenario .96 and .97 would both be rounded up to a dollar. That’s not how it works anywhere that has eliminated cents, AFAIK. 96 and 97 cents would both round down. And if you say “Ah ha, they’ll set the price of widgets at 98 cents and round up!”, well, you can beat them at their own game and buy two widgets at $1.96. 🙂 I think it’s crazy that we have basically the same set of coins (in the UK) that we had over 30 years ago, apart from the addition of the £2 coin. They’ve made some of them smaller, but the values are the same. ---
**Author:** ![eastcheap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@eastcheap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eastcheap)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056/69 "2015-11-26T18:18:59Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I see $50s and $2s frequently. If you work in retail and especially if you have state lottery machines, We don’t have state lottery machines. Participating merchants pony up the small winnings…in twenties, of course. > [@](#): > > Actually they’d just as soon not do X.99 pricing. True, it is a bit of a pain, though computerized inventory/POS systems have made it a lot less so. I suppose a better way to put it is, “Retailers really hate losing sales.” > [@](#): > > They deliberately set the Euro to be just over the value of the US dollar at the time Well, the ECU. The Euro just took over (at parity) in 1999. > [@](#): > > It was a psychological thing, but for the bankers. They would have been the ones leading the riots. 🙂 They’d been dealing in ECUs for almost twenty years (24 years, if you count the EUA). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollars-and-dimes/736056.md?page=3)