History UsefulNotes / AmericanMoney

** Cconfusingly, $ is also the abbreviation for Pesos in Mexico, which borders the U.S. to the south.

Paper money, called “bills” in the U.S., start at the dollar. One-dollar coins exist, but the paper one-dollar bill is far more popular. The next denomination up is the little-used $2 bill, which can sometimes lead to confusion as the younger generation does not always recognize it as legal tender. Next are the $5 and $10 bills. The $20 bill is probably the most commonly used in basic transactions, being the standard bill for ATM bank withdrawals, and is also known as a “yuppie food stamp.” Next up are the $50 and $100 bills. They're easy to misplace, what with being a thin strip of cottony paper, so don't! Unlike some other countries, American bills are all the same size and until recently all the same color (Black on white on the front. Green on white on the back. Hence greenbacks) In recent years redesigns have made some bills slightly more colorful as part of anti-counterfeiting measures, though still nowhere as colorful as Euro (or Canadian) bills.[[hottip:*:Many Americans call Canadian bills especially "Monopoly Money" because the fake money used in the board game is also distinctively colored by denomination.]]

Through most of U.S. history, there were four types of bills issued by the US government - ''silver'' and '' gold certificates'', ''United States Notes'', and ''Federal Reserve Notes''. The first two were specie-backed currency, meaning that their value was backed by an equivalent amount of the specific precious metal in their name. Because of the large number of gold certificates in circulation in 1933, there was a fear that a national panic would result in everybody trying to redeem their gold certificates at the same time, bankrupting the U.S. gold reserves; it was for this reason that private ownership of non-jewelry gold was outlawed. That law was not lifted until the 1960s. United States Notes, and Federal Reserve Notes before 1963, were redeemable in “lawful money,” which was never defined by Congress; the only difference between these two types of paper money was that one was issued by the U.S. Treasury and the other was issued by the Federal Reserve. Modern Federal Reserve Notes, which have been the only sort of paper money issued by the US Government since 1963, are ''fiat'' currency - their value is not backed by any hard resource, but by the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. Government.

-->-- sign on President Harry Truman's desk

Paper money, called “bills” in the U.S., start at the dollar. One-dollar coins exist, but the paper one-dollar bill is far more popular. The next denomination up is the little-used $2 bill, which can sometimes lead to confusion as the younger generation does not always recognize it as legal tender. Next are the $5 and $10 bills. The $20 bill is probably the most commonly used in basic transactions, being the standard bill for ATM bank withdrawals, and is also known as a “yuppie food stamp.” Next up are the $50 and $100 bills. They're easy to misplace, what with being a thin strip of cottony paper, so don't! Unlike some other countries, American bills are all the same size and until recently all the same color (Black on white on the front. Green on white on the back. Hence greenbacks) In recent years redesigns have made some bills slightly more colorful as part of anti-counterfeiting measures, though still nowhere as colorful as Euro (or Canadian) bills.[[hottip:*:Many Americans call Canadian bills especially "Monopoly Money" because the fake money used in the board game is also distinctively colored by denomination.]]

It's worth noting that Canadian coins come in the same size, color, and denominations as Americans up to one dollar (they also have a $2-coin called a "toonie" that's bimetallic, with a central disc of a brass alloy encased in a silvery-colored outer ring). They're traditionally worth less and weigh less than American coins but are usually interchangeable to all but the most nitpicky cashiers and vending machines.[[hottip:*:over the past few years Canadian currency has appreciated considerably relative to US currency, with the result that as of this writing (November 2012) the Canadollar is actually worth slightly MORE than a US greenback (about 1 mill more, in fact; 1 USD = 0.999 CAN).]]

'''Pennies''': Officially called the cent. Each cent is one one hundredth of a dollar, and comes in the form of a small coin formerly made of bronze, but since 1981 made of zinc with a copper coating. In the early 1800s the one-cent piece was a very large coin, mid-way in size between the quarter and the half-dollar, but by the 1850s copper had become valuable enough that there was now more than a cent's worth of copper in a one-cent coin -- the solution was to shrink it to its modern size. A similar dilemma faced the coin in 1981, when almost all of the copper had to be replaced with (much cheaper) zinc, and is facing the coin again today as even the price of zinc now outstrips the value of the penny. It's had Abraham Lincoln's profile on the front since 1909.

Before the AmericanRevolution, it was at one time common in multiple world currencies to physically slice dollar (or equivalent) coins into eight ''bits'' worth 12.5 cents each. The highly popular Spanish Milled Dollar, as already mentioned, was worth eight Spanish Reals -- which was why pirates called them "pieces of eight". Slicing it into 8 pieces produced 8 bits worth one Real apiece. This denomination has survived today primarily in colloquialism; a ShaveAndAHaircut was worth a quarter dollar, "two bits", as advertised by [[BarbershopQuartet barbershop quartets]]. This convention of dividing a dollar into 8 pieces also persisted in the Stock Market all the way through the 1980s; if you watch an older movie with the Stock Market in it, you'll see stock prices like "11 5/8".

Paper money, called “bills” in the U.S., start at the dollar. One-dollar coins exist, but the paper one-dollar bill is far more popular. The next denomination up is the little-used $2 bill, which can sometimes lead to confusion as the younger generation does not always recognize it as legal tender. Next are the $5 and $10 bills. The $20 bill is probably the most commonly used in basic transactions, being the standard bill for ATM bank withdrawals, and is also known as a “yuppie food stamp.” Next up are the $50 and $100 bills. They're easy to misplace, what with being a thin strip of cottony paper, so don't! Unlike some other countries, American bills are all the same size and until recently all the same color (Black on white on the front. Green on white on the back. Hence greenbacks) In recent years redesigns have made some bills slightly more colorful as part of anti-counterfeiting measures, though still nowhere as colorful as Euro (or Canadian) bills.

It's worth noting that Canadian coins come in the same size, color, and denominations as Americans up to one dollar (they also have a $2-coin called a "toonie" that's bimetallic, with a central disc of a brass alloy encased in a silvery-colored outer ring). They're usually worth less and weigh less than American coins but are usually interchangeable to all but the most nitpicky cashiers and vending machines.

The dollar is subdivided into 100 individual units, called ''cents''. Each cent is in turn further divided into 10 ''mills'', a unit of currency largely rendered hypothetical through inflation (except in the price of gasoline, although property-tax rates are often expressed in mills), of which there are 1000 in a dollar.

There were also 3¢, 5¢, 10¢, 15¢, 25¢, 50¢, $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 bills in circulation at one time, but they are no longer used and essentially never seen outside of collections. $100,000 bills were used to settle accounts between banks, but were never released outside the banking system.

* ¢: Cents. Appears ''after'' the number. Used instead of, not in addition to, the dollar sign, and only if an integer number of cents are specified (rather than a decimal value of dollars). Almost ''never'' used these days, as (thanks to inflation) most goods worth buying cost more than a dollar. Even as early as the 1960s, when computer character sets were becoming standardized, neither the ASCII nor the EBCDIC character set contained a cents sign (American computer keyboards replaced it with the caret, i.e, ^).
* Prices in dollars and cents are written with a decimal point; e.g., $4.35 means 4 dollars and 35 cents. A zero at the end of the decimal is never dropped, so 4 dollars and 50 cents would be written as $4.50, not $4.5 .

** [[ItGotWorse Doubly confusing]], some areas that operate with the US dollar (such as Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands) may refer to a dollar as a "peso".

It's worth noting that Canadian coins come in the same size, color, and denominations as Americans up to one dollar (they also have a $2-coin called a "toonie" that just looks bizarrely awesome). They're usually worth less and weigh less than American coins but are usually interchangeable to all but the most nitpicky cashiers and vending machines.

Through most of U.S. history, there were four types of bills issued by the US government - ''silver'' and '' gold certificates'', ''United States Notes'', and ''Federal Reserve Notes''. The first two were specie-backed currency, meaning that their value was backed by an equivalent amount of the specific precious metal in their name. United States Notes, and Federal Reserve Notes before 1963, were redeemable in “lawful money,” which was never defined by Congress; the only difference between these two types of paper money was that one was issued by the U.S. Treasury and the other was issued by the Federal Reserve. Modern Federal Reserve Notes, which have been the only sort of paper money issued by the US Government since 1963, are ''fiat'' currency - their value is not backed by any hard resource, but by the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. Government.

Until 1933, the U.S. also minted ''gold'' currency, based around a gold-only denomination called the Eagle. Just as a Dime is an official currency unit worth 1/10 of a dollar, so an Eagle was an official currency unit worth 10 dollars. There were quarter eagle coins (worth $2.50 each), half eagles ($5), eagles ($10), and even double eagles ($20). With the coming of TheGreatDepression, private ownership of gold in any form other than jewelry was outlawed; gold coins were systematically removed from circulation and melted down. Only those gold coins kept by private collectors survived. Today, the U.S. mint produces a series of bullion coins called American Eagles in their honor.

The standard unit of American money is called the ''dollar'', presumably from the German word "Taler" which was used for various now obsolete currencies and is originally derived from "Joachimsthal", a town in Bohemia where coins were minted. More directly, the original U.S. dollar was based on the Spanish eight-real coin, called the Spanish Dollar (and occasionally the ''Dollero'') because of its resemblance to the ''taler'' coin. Even though the north American colonies belonged to Great Britain, the Spanish Dollars were more popular there because of their finer silver.

Before the AmericanRevolution, it was at one time common in multiple world currencies to physically slice dollar (or equivalent) coins into eight ''bits'' worth 12.5 cents each. This denomination has survived today primarily in colloquialism; a ShaveAndAHaircut was worth a quarter dollar, "two bits", as advertised by [[BarbershopQuartet barbershop quartets]], and pirates sought "pieces of eight", from the historical origin of the dollar as a copy of the Spanish Milled Dollar, which was worth 8 Spanish Reals. This convention of dividing a dollar into 8 pieces also persisted in the Stock Market all the way through the 1980s; if you watch an older movie with the Stock Market in it, you'll see stock prices like "11 5/8".

'''Dimes:''' Officially called the dime. That's right. "Dime" is an official currency unit in the Federal monetary system, just like "dollar" and "cent" are. The word comes from the French ''disme'', meaning tenth -- it's one-tenth of a dollar, or ten cents. Until 1965, dimes were composed of 90% silver, which is why they are smaller than nickels and pennies. The dime has had Franklin Delano Roosevelt's profile on the front since 1946, a year after he died.

'''50-cent pieces:''' Officially called the half dollar. Like the dime and quarter, it was made of 90% silver until 1965, but unlike the dime and quarter it switched to a "copper-silver clad" configuration in 1965, resulting in people hoarding them in anticipation of rising silver prices. The composition switched to the same copper-nickel clad configuration as the dime and quarter in 1972, but by then it was too late. The coin had fallen almost completely out of favor, and to this day no vending machines (other than post office vending machines) accept the half dollar coin any more. It's had John F. Kennedy's profile on the front since 1964, the year after his assassination.

Before the AmericanRevolution, it was at one time common in multiple world currencies to physically slice dollar (or equivalent) coins into eight ''bits'' worth 12.5 cents each. This denomination has survived today primarily in colloquialism; a ShaveAndAHaircut was worth a quarter dollar, "two bits", as advertised by [[BarbershopQuartet barbershop quartets]], and pirates sought "pieces of eight", from the historical origin of the dollar as a copy of the Spanish Milled Dollar, which bore a nominal or 8 reals. (This convention of dividing a dollar into 8 pieces also persisted in the Stock Market all the way through the 1980s.)

'''Dollar coins:''' Officially called [[CaptainObvious the dollar]]. Prior to 1979, it was a ''huuuuge'' honkin' coin, weighing in at twice as much as a 50-cent piece; this was due to its legacy of being made out of 90% silver, just like the dime, quarter, and half dollar were. To this day, these old large-sized dollar coins are still called "silver dollars", even though they stopped being made out of silver in 1971. Starting in 1979, a new, smaller dollar coin appeared sporting Susan B. Anthony's profile on the front. These were not only about the same size as a quarter, they also had the same copper-nickel clad construction and reeded edge as a quarter, making them easy to confuse in loose change. In 2000, the mint attempted to remedy this by introducing the "gold" (really manganese brass) dollar coin featuring Sacagawea's picture on the front. By this time, though, most Americans had gotten out of the habit of carrying change pouches around, and eminently preferred the paper dollar, so even this new easy-to-distinguish dollar coin never caught on. From 2007-2011, an attempt was made to revive interest in this coin by putting all of the U.S. presidents on them in chronological order, but this too failed and the program stopped at Rutherford B. Hayes.

The standard unit of American money is called the ''dollar'', presumably from the German word "Taler"[[hottip:*:possibly indirectly through the Spanish eight-real coin, called the Spanish Dollar (and occasionally the ''Dollero'') because of its resemblance to the ''taler'' coin. The Spanish Dollars were more popular in early America for their finer silver.]] which was used for various now obsolete currencies and is originally derived from "Joachimsthal", a town in Bohemia where coins were minted. It is subdivided into 100 individual units, ''cents''. Each cent is in turn further divided into 10 ''mills'', a unit of currency largely rendered hypothetical through inflation (except in the price of gasoline, although property-tax rates are often expressed in mills), of which there are 1000 in a dollar.

It's worth noting that Canadian coins come in the same size, color, and denominations as Americans up to one dollar (they also have a $2-coin called a "toonie" that just looks bizarrely awesome). They're usually worth less and weigh less than American coins but are usually interchangeable to all but the most nitpicky cashiers and vending machines. In the mid-19th century, the U.S. experimented unsuccessfully with 20 and 2 cent coins, and had half-cent coins as well as mill tokens for the truly silly. As well, it was at one time common in multiple world currencies to physically slice dollar (or equivalent) coins into eight ''bits'' worth 12.5 cents each. This denomination has survived today primarily in colloquialism; a ShaveAndAHaircut was worth a quarter dollar, "two bits", as advertised by [[BarbershopQuartet barbershop quartets]], and pirates sought "pieces of eight", from the historical origin of dollar as a copy of the aforementioned Spanish Dollar, which bore a nominal or 8 reals. (This convention of dividing a dollar into 8 pieces also persisted in the Stock Market all the way through the 1980s.)

'''Dimes:''' Officially called the dime. That's right. "Dime" is an official currency unit in the Federal monetary system. The word comes from the French ''disme'', meaning tenth -- it's one-tenth of a dollar, or ten cents. Until 1965, dimes were composed of 90% silver, which is why they are smaller than nickels and pennies. The dime has had Franklin Delano Roosevelt's profile on the front since 1946, a year after he died.

The standard unit of American money is called the ''dollar'', presumably from the German word "Taler"[[hottip:*:possibly indirectly through the Spanish eight-real coin, called the Spanish Dollar (and occasionally the ''Dollero'') because of its resemblance to the ''taler'' coin. The Spanish Dollars were more popular in early America for their finer silver.]] which was used for various now obsolete currencies and is originally derived from "Joachimsthal", a town in Bohemia where coins were minted. It is subdivided into 100 individual units, ''cents''. Each cent is in turn further divided into 10 ''mills'', a unit of currency largely rendered hypothetical through inflation (except in the price of gasoline, although property-tax rates are often expressed in mills), of which there are 1000 in a dollar. Each cent is one one hundredth of a dollar, and comes in the form of a small coin formerly made of bronze, but now made of zinc with a copper coating.

|| half dollar || 50 cent piece || 50¢ ||
|| dollar || dollar || $1 ||
The half dollar and dollar coin are rarely seen in circulation.

Other coins are the nickel, five cents; the dime, ten cents; the quarter, 25 cents; the half-dollar (guess); and various editions of a one-dollar coin. The half-dollar lost favor after 1965, and the dollar coin never really caught on. 50-cent pieces don't even fit in most vending machines, though dollar coins are sometimes given as change in the newer ones. Those not accustomed to US currency sometimes find it counterintuitive that the dime is physically smaller than the penny, and all the common dollar coins are similar in size to the quarter. (Dollar coins were larger than the half-dollar prior to 1979, but the half-dollar coin is already at or near the upper limit of how large a coin a person wants to carry around.) The size disparities are the legacy of pre-1965 silver coinage - the dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar were made from a silver alloy, and the dime weighed (and still does) 1/10 that of the "silver dollar". The nickel was and is still made of a copper-nickel alloy, hence the name; most dollar coins minted these days are at least intended to look golden. On top of that, the dime does not say "10 cents" on it; it says "one dime", and you're expected to figure out that that comes from the French for "one tenth" - di(s)me.

'''Abbreviations:''' The words are usually not spelled out, so here are the relevant abbreviations (and symbols):