No, the bees are now all in bee-shooting hounds.
IIRC, in Chicago in the late 1880’s, my Grandmother told me that she would have one single nickel to spend on a day’s entertainment.
She said it cost her a penny each way on the street car, 2 cents to watch a movie and one cent for a bag of candy !
So pennies have certainly lost their purchasing power…
.
Only for cash transactions. Credit card purchases can be done in smaller increments.
And even if you made 10 cash purchases a day, that’s only $0.25 extra per day that you’d be paying as a result of the rounding up.
Dunno, but the 1797 Geo III Cartwheel Pennies weighed one and a half oz each. They immediately added 2 oz tuppences 1.6 inches diameter by one-fifth of an inch thick for those who felt their pockets weighed too little.
nm
I’ll answer my own question, which connects to OP’s since the farthing — price of a quart of ale, six eggs, or a cheap tunic — was the smallest unit of currency in 14th-century England. And in the early 13th century, when the farthing was worth even more — say ten eggs instead of six — farthings weren’t even minted; people made their own by cutting pennies into quarters.
Source: ENGLISH COINAGE FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE PRESENT
I admit I’m surprised to hear the silver penny was the lowest-valued coin for centuries. The smallest coin of the realm had to be cut in half to pay for a half-gallon of ale!
How were small transactions conducted? Did people more-or-less ignore trifling purchases? It does seem eye-opening when one recalls how worried Americans are about using a 5-cent piece as the lowest coin — I don’t think you can get even a quart of ale with a nickel nowadays!
If it’s American ale, it’s mostly water, anyway. Zing!
“less than a lot of”? How many low cost items need there be at a particular price point for it to have influence on the units of a currency?
The US economy managed quite well when there actually were consumer goods you could get for a penny. Sure if you have to price up single candies from 1 to 2 pennies that’s a major price hike. But single candy sales is a vanishingly small part of your sales and you don’t have to double the price of 10 candies bought together.
Norway has no coins smaller than 0.5 kroner (5-6 cents), but I could if I wanted to pick up a single candy, nominally selling for less than that, and bring it to the cash register. If paying cash I’d have to overpay, if paying by card I would probably still have to overpay, but by less, but I’m not going to start marching for electronic payment solutions to include more decimal places.
It’s where the tradition of buying a round comes from. No sorry, it’s the origin of the bar tab. No, I’m just making things up. But I’d be surprised if it isn’t true that small transactions like buying a pint were unusual, and that it’s quite possible you just paid a high premium if you came from out of town and insisted all you wanted to buy was a single beer.
That isn’t how it works, and never has been how it works, prices are rounded up or down, not just up.
This concept is especially relevant in the US where we frequently apply a sales tax percentage to purchases, at the total level, so you never really know exactly what cent value your purchase will come out to, unless you buy exactly the same thing every single day.
Back to the OP, I’m having a hard time thinking of anything under $.25 that really deserves to be handled by an individual transaction. The only thing I know I can buy for less is time on a parking meter or individual pieces of Bazooka gum, and I don’t think our nation’s currency strategy should be based on gum purchases.
As well, as time winds along, currency loses value ( leading to this OP, of course ), so most countries issue a revaluation every century or so — not to cheat the working man, but to adapt to new circumstances and make things align. Particularly of course when it costs 70,000 X to buy an orange.
Instead of concerning oneself over wretched little coins that no longer buy an Axe for 5 of them *, it would be better to recognize 10 cents as the final division — assuming the US is not in line to adopt a new currency entirely — in Britain it would make fuck all difference to me if 10p ( ex 2 shillings in real money ) was the smallest coin and the smallest unit of accounting.
There will be puir souls wretchedly crooning “Ma bawbees, ma precious bawbees !” ** covering their heads with mantels and rocking back and forth like a heroine in a Greek Play — assuming a bad thing happens in a Greek Play — but as usual, these people can safely be ignored.
-
Luminarium — Medieval Price List
** A Bawbee was a Scots ha-penny. Because Scotland was always astoundingly poor until the Union it was valued at 6 Scottish Pennies or 1 English ha-penny.
Remember, 12 pennies to a shilling; 20 shillings to a Pound. That was the last iteration, since Pounds weren’t used in ordinary life, despite them being the oldest currency still used, a Pound was an accounting value ( however, other coins such as the Sovereign conveniently had the value of 20 shillings.
It’s really easier to regard the Shilling as the base value until at least the 20th century.
A couple of links:
Old Bailey Online - Coinage
Marc Carlson - Historical Coinage “Cheat Sheet”
I don’t know that that’s true. Most countries I know of have never issued a revaluation. And the ones that have revaluated have done so due to hyperinflation over a short period of time, not as a once in a century or so response to ordinary inflation. Or also swapping one currency that wasn’t at 70,000 per orange for another quite similar, for some political reason or other.
Yes. true your change will be rounded to the nearest nickel, but prices wont. Note that gas prices are still sometimes calculated to mills aka 1/10th of a cent.
I agree, we dont really need a coin smaller than a quarter. :eek:
What’s wrong with revaluing currency? In the sense of “what used to be a dollar is now 10 cents, what used to be a dime is now a penny, this only applies to currency minted after date X, earlier coinage retains its earlier value”. After a not-very-confusing year or two where both currencies are used side by side, I’m not seeing a problem. And it isn’t much more confusing than simply getting rid of a coin entirely.
As mentioned, this is most commonly associated with Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe-style hyper-inflation, but assuming we just want to get back to Grandpa’s prices, for old time’s sake, what’s the downside?
The USA is proud of the fact that a dollar bill is still worth a dollar, no matter when is was printed.
Where I lived there were stores that had wide selections of penny candy.
“Sometimes”? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a gas pump that didn’t charge that extra nine mills per gallon…
That’s what, about a $25 experience now? $3.50 each weay on public transit, $6 for candy & $12 for a movie ticket?
So the smallest unit of currency should be the $5 [del]bill[/del] coin. The smaller stuff is just details; the money equivalent of sawdust.
They should also mint $10 and $20 coins. The only paper money should be $100s. Each with an embedded tracking chip fully disclosed to freak out the rubes. 
Seriously speaking, the fact slow inflation has reduced our money to 1 / 500th of what it was 150ish years ago says we’re probably overdue for either a formal decimal point shift or at least rejiggering the stupid coinage.
If nothing is done then someday it will be literally true that it will take a wheelbarrow full of pennies to buy an ordinary loaf of bread. Shades of Weimar!
Extra? That’s an interesting way to put it.