Is there any reason why the increments for a US dollar include the quarter, but the US increments for $100 include a $20 instead of a $25 dollar bill?
Was this thought out, or was it just a fluke thing that was implemented and never changed?
I believe Canada’s system is the same (aside from the looney and toony)… why? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a $25 bill instead of a $20?
I just figured it had to do with change for a $20 being more readily available (two 10s) whereas a $25 bill could not be easily split.
This was my initial thought as well, but then wouldn’t the same hold true for a 20 cent piece?
I remember hearing the phrase “shave and a haircut, 2 bits” I was told 2 bits was the equivalent of a quarter… making a bit 12 1/2 cents. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
Well the 20 Dollar Double Eagle gold coin was probably the precursor to why the 20 dollar bill seemed normal. As to why they didn’t have a popular 25$ coin, no idea.
Yes. Has to do with pieces of eight (Spanish dollars worth 8 reals) which were often broken into ‘bits.’
Actually, the U.S. did mint a 20 cent coinfor a few years. Its big problem was that it was easily confused with a quarter.
The $20 bill was introduced in 1861, when greenbacks started to replace coins. As for why there was a $20 coin and not a $25 coin, I’d guess it had to do with the fact that the price of gold coinage was set at $20.67/oz. (troy). Take $20 of gold bullion, add just enough alloy to harden it, and the coin would weigh one ounce.
Thomas Jefferson proposed a 20 cent piece. The quarter was favored as it was more compatible with Spanish coinage. The Spanish dollar, or peso, was worth 8 reales, or “bits”, as mentioned, whether or not it was common to split them physically into pieces. The quarter came out as an even “two bits”. The US dollar traded on par with the Spanish dollar, which it was initially modeled on, until the mid 19th century. Spanish coinage was a defacto standard in the New World, even in some areas controlled by England or France. It made sense to initially peg the US dollar to it.
One of the things prompting the issuance of the short-lived twenty cent coin was supposedly a shortage of nickels and pennies in the western areas of the country, as well as the influence of the silver lobby. A lot of things cost a dime, and people would pay with a quarter, then get short-changed because they could only be offered a dime or a 12.5 cent Spanish bit in change. The western mints couldn’t produce non-silver coins, and the silver lobby wasn’t about to let them without a fight. The silver 20 cent piece, which allowed a dime change was the “solution”, and it wasn’t popular.
It was NOT common to actually split them into bits.
You know, I read the story in your link, and it’s good to know that morons and idiots who made decisions on coin design at the US mint were just as bad as their modern day counterparts (see the SB Anthony dollar vs. the quarter).
It makes me wonder if the acceptance of the 20 cent piece was ever wanted. When you make it look just like the quarter of the day, people are going to reject it. Just like the US trying to make a dollar coin. It will never succeed until the mint stops making dollar bills. Simple as that. Take the paper dollar out of circulation, and folks will have no choice but to use the coin.
Not really. I’m not sure of the answer to the OP, but the $20 bill was the precursor to the $20 coin.
The $20 gold piece doesn’t occur until 1849. (discovery of massive gold deposits in Calif. etc.)
All of the “obsolete” or “broken bank notes” that were issued by private banks and entities, before the US Government got into the biz in 1861-2, were in denominations of $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100. Yeah, there were some weird off denominations, but the ones I listed were the standard, no matter the State, City, Merchant, etc. I’m talking about in the US. These obsolete notes start showing up in the 1810s and continuing until the first issue of the Government notes(and shortly after).