I was wondering why we have a 20-dollar bill and a 25-cent coin? Why not a 25-dollar bill or a 20-cent coin? All the other denominations match up, but not this one. Is there a reason or is it just random?
Thanks,
Nirav
Arlington, VA
The $20 bill matches the old (and fairly rare) Double-Eagle, which had about one OZ of gold.
The quarter is 2 “bits” where a bit was 1/8th of an old Spanish dollar.
Thomas Jefferson proposed a system using a 20 cent coin. As noted, the quarter was consistent with old Spanish currency. Spanish money was a defacto standard in the new world, and, in fact continued to circulate on par with the US dollar until the mid 19th century.
While I suppose you could make a case for a 25$ bill, it’s not really neccessary, and the 25-cent peice is actually rather nicer for making change than 2-cent peices would be. Just a little more efficient. Wish they’d bring back the half-dollar, though.
A twenty cent piece WAS issued briefly, BTW, in 1875. The story in back of it is rather strange, involving the political influence of silver interests:
What the article doesn’t mention and is a story I’ve seen in other sources, is that it was partially precipitated by a shortage of pennies and nickels in the west. Many things cost a dime. People would pay with a quarter, and get shortchanged by being handed back a dime or a 12.5 cent Spanish bit (technically after these were no longer legal tender, but they circulated in the west). Because of those same silver interests, western mints were not permitted to mint non-silver coins, hence the silver 20 cent piece that would theoretically alleviate the situation by allowing a dime change.
But not much different that a 20-cent piece would be, which I think is more of the point, particularly as it’s the more common division of a larger unit in other countries.
Ah, but was it 200+ years ago? I think not.
The US started making “quarters” in 1796 and has made them ever since. This was inline with the Spanish 8 Real/4 Real/2 Real system.
They never did away with it. Just go to your local bank and ask for them. Virtually no one likes them, so they don’t circulate.
I don’t know how many decimal systems were in use at that point. Perhaps it’s one of these cases where the early adopter of a system gets left with traces of older ones, while once the system proves popular, everybody else manages to avoid the same situation.
AFAIK, the USA was the one of the first. wiki sez we were 2nd (1792), behind Russia (1710).
At the time the U.S. adopted the dollar, the principal crown-size coin in circulation in the Americas, both Anglo- and Hispano-, was the Spanish “milled dollar” valued at eight reals. This was literally halved and quartered (semicircles and 90-degree wedges) to produce four-bit and two-bit “coins”, “bit” being synonymous with the Spanish real (“ray-ahl”, not “reel”). Hence when the U.S. issued the larger subdivisions of the dollar as coins, a four-bit (50-cent) and two-bit (25-cent) piece made sense.
The early coinage included:
[ul][li]Copper half cents and cents[/li][li]Silver half dimes, dimes, quarter ahd half dollars, and dollars[/li][li]Gold quarter eagles ($2.50), half eagles ($5), and eagles ($10). The double eagle ($20) came along some years later.[/ul][/li]
In 1857, the coinage was reformed. The half cent was dropped, the old large cent (about quarter size) shrunk to the present “penny” size, and the silver 3-cents and half dime were discontinued, with copper-nickel replacements (the origin of our present 5-cent “nickel”).
Other denominations that got at least trial issues, some for many years, included copper/bronze two-cents, silver 20-cents, and gold coins worth $1, $3, and $4. All gold coinage was discontinued in 1933.