US currency, legally, is the dollar, divided into 100 fractional units known as “cents”. Is the US “One Dime” the only legal tender in the world that does not have an inscription indicating its value in term of a numeral and/or a unit of currency? If the US minted a 20-cent coin, would it say “Two Dimes”?
When we did make a 20 cent coin it said “Twenty Cents”
But before the nickel we had a half dime and half disme.
According to the Coinage Act of 1792, the “dime” (then spelled “disme”) IS a unit of currency, defined as one-tenth of a dollar.
However, a 25-cent piece is clearly marked “QUARTER DOLLAR,” and a 50-cent piece is marked “HALF DOLLAR,” which means they are the answer to your question about legal tender that does not have an inscription indicating its value in term of a numeral and/or a unit of currency.
I know coins saying “one shilling” were designated as five pence coins for many years after the shilling ceased to be a unit of currency in the U.K. A shilling coin may still be legal tender there, but I’d guess the coin collectors have a lock on them by now.
Vietnam used to have coins denominated in “hao”, which is like our dime. That is, 1 dong = 100 xu, but a hao was 10 xu. However, hyperinflation (now mostly under control) has made anything under about 200 dong irrelevant, so even if you could find one of those old coins, the question of it being legal tender or not would be moot.
The sixpence was also legal tender after the change over. But it was only worth 2 and a half new pence. So we had a coin that had one numerical value on it but was worth a different value.
A shilling ceased to be legal tender in about 1991 when the resized 5p coin entered circulation. Before then the 5p and shilling were both the same size and the same fraction of £1 so the older coin was used interchangeably with the new.
Prior to decimalisation English currency not only included pounds, shillings and pence but also half-crowns, crowns (respectively, one-eighth and one-quarter of a pound) and the florin. Florins were worth two shillings or one-tenth of a pound and later pre-decimal coins were marked “Two shillings”, but ISTR mid-century “Florins” were still in circulation when I was young. (I may be wrong. Because of their silver content, they should have been out of circulation by the 1960s.) And, of course, the farthing, a quarter-penny but not so named.
“Quarter dollar” is a numerical (although fractional) quantity of “dollars”, the official name of the unit of currency.
No its not. Dime describes a coin, but its value in terms of dollars.
From my experience with collecting world coins, I’d say “dime” is unique. The terms “quarter dollar” and “half dollar” are also nearly unique - most other countries spell out the denomination in numbers. In fact, only a few countries divide their main unit into quarters; instead 20 cent pieces are much more common. Quarters are left over from our country’s history of cutting Spanish (Mexican) silver milled 8-reales “dollars” into halves and quarters - two bits being a quarter.
This basically never happened. Myth.
Then why is a quarter called two bits?
In Canada, the coins are called 1 cent (now obsolete), 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, and (although I have never seen one) 50 cents. Now there are 1 dollar and 2 dollar coins. But dime is clearly from dixieme (or, more likely, the Spanish equivalent).
Regarding the Coinage Act of 1792:
The same act also says “CENTS–each to be of the value of the one hundredth part of a dollar.”
If cent is a unit, then di(s)me is a unit. As is the eagle.
Just because people never physically cut Spanish Milled Dollars into 8 pieces, didn’t mean that they weren’t still called “pieces of eight.” What with being valued at 8 reales and all.
Incidentally, the division of a dollar into 8 pieces persisted long after the founding of the country. Shares of stock were traded in increments of 1/8 of a dollar by all the major stock exchanges, all the way up until April 9, 2001. (source: Why the NYSE Once Reported Prices in Fractions )
Calling cents pennies is a holdover from the colonial times and British coinage, isn’t it?
As far as I’m aware, the traditional money from Yap has no inscription at all.
I would debate that slightly since some Nations (if not individuals) did counterstamp the cut bits with their own markings and denominations. I carry a 3 stivers in my teaching kit I could image for you if you want.
And I believe Mishner <sic?> in one of his weekly reports had an example of a cut with a merchant’s stamp on it. Don’t recall the follow-up though.
Pretty much. And don’t get me started on the “Indian Head Penny” (that’s actually Miss Liberty and was meant as a dig against slavery) or “Mercury Dime” (Miss Liberty again portraying “Freedom of Thought”)
I’m just saying that it was not common in the US. I agree that some Caribbean nations did cut them. Mishler probably. Yeah, I’ve seen counterstamped pieces.
The term “bit” in Colonial U.S. referred to the smaller coins of Spanish America such as the quarter real, the half real, maybe even the one real. So “two bits” was a coin(the 2 real), equivalent to about a U.S. quarter(25 cents).
“Unique” if you mean “having a term meaning a fraction of the major currency unit, not a quantity of the minor”, but as indicated earlier, the British £.s.d system included pounds, crowns (quarter-pounds, but not so called), half-crowns, florins (tenth-pounds), shillings (twentieths of pounds) and pence. Go back far enough and we had nobles valued one-third of a pound (six shillings and eightpence), later called angels (and with a good deal of fluctuation in value over the years). The half-angel (one-sixth of a pound) also existed in Tudor times.
Just checked my spare change and discovered something interesting. Although the penny (no longer made but still valid) says “1 cent”, the loonie (nicknamed as such because of the loon on it) just says “dollar” without a number. All of our other coins have a number followed by “cents” or “dollars” (for the twonie).