The wonderful world of currency. I was a little spooked to realize I didn't know where the word "dollar" came from. "Cent" is a bit more obvious, but "dollar" is weird. After looking it up, it really is weird. We get our dollars from Spanish pirates - yarrrgh.
But American currency isn't the only ugly duckling in the pond. I also went digging on the British pound, and they have more skeletons in their closet than Vincent Price's birthday party. We try to standardize measurements down to the light second, but currencies are bloody strange.
Anyone curious about other currencies out there? I'd be glad to go digging. Historical dirt is my specialty.
Really nice. This reminded me of connections by James Burke. My roommate used to have a game version of it on his Mac. I have a coin that I'll have to dig out and might have to ask you about. I know it's old and I think it's British. I was at a bar, and a very drunk guy next to me said "I really want a drink, but all I have is this old coin." I told him that I'd gladly buy him a drink for it, and he happily accepted. I was very drunk too, otherwise I would have probably just let him keep the coin. A couple of years ago, I was kayaking along some sandstone cliffs along the lake Superior shoreline. My cousin came up on a jet ski, and as we were chatting, he said "What's that?" He bent down to pick up a silver dollar from the 1890's. It was in very good condition. I love coins. As thenewgreen mentioned below, I am collecting one penny from every year of the last century. My only rule is that I cannot buy them. I'm close. I have mostly just some aughts and teens left.
Strangely enough, you're the second person to compare me with James Burke in the past 24 hours. I must have started down some dark path. Your mystery British coin sounds fascinating. I'd love to hear more about it if you can take a scan or transcribe some of the text. If it's an old one, I'm going to bet it's still got some exotic Latin stamped around the edges. Actually I just looked up a 2-bob coin with Our Liz on the front and they still do it! "ELIZABETH II DEI GRA REG FID DEF" (Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith". In the early 20th century (when Britain still owned India) they added to that "IND IMP" (Emperor of India). Are there many early 20th century pennies still in circulation? I'd have thought they'd be almost impossible to find, but then I don't know much about how these things circulate. That's a really cool project, though. I might try it myself…
Nice to know the origins, made all the more interesting by the fact that my grandfather's name is Joachim. -I now feel more connected to my currency. I have a 2 year old daughter that watches Mary Poppins at least twice a week. We will be out and about and she will randomly bust in to song feed the birds tuppins a bag... It got me wondering, what exactly are tuppins? Turns out its the word tuppence, which is slang for "two-pence". This makes sense since Michael, the boy in the movie, is holding two coins. Aside: mk are you still collecting?
You might get a kick out of this - it's an Australian ad for when they converted to decimal currency in 1966. The arithmetic (and the music) is excruciatingly awful!
Great piece of propaganda, thanks for the link. I like how dollar bill winces in annoyance until he gets to do the conversions in decimals, then it's all smiles.