119 Fun Facts About Money

The word 'money' comes from the Latin moneta, linked to the temple of which goddess?

Rome's mint stood at the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline.

Which function of money lets purchasing power be saved and spent later?

Money acts as a store of value because it can be held and spent later; the other classic functions are medium of exchange, unit of account and standard of deferred payment.

Accounting records more than 7,000 years old, predating coins, have been found where?

Mesopotamia: clay tokens and tablets recording debts of grain and livestock go back more than 7,000 years, long before the first coins appeared in Lydia around 600 BC.

Lacking precious metals, 17th-century Sweden produced 'plate money' made of what?

Sweden struck plate money from large slabs of copper; the 10-daler plate of 1644 weighed nearly 20 kg and measured roughly 30 by 70 cm.

The 'heads' side of a coin is formally called what?

The obverse is the heads side of a coin, usually carrying the principal portrait or design; the reverse is tails.

The Romans called coin flipping navia aut caput, meaning what?

Navia aut caput means 'ship or head': early Roman bronze asses showed the two-faced god Janus on one side and a ship's prow on the other.

Which US city's name was decided by an 1845 coin toss, the penny itself kept in a museum?

Portland, Oregon: Francis Pettygrove, from Portland, Maine, won two of three tosses against Asa Lovejoy, who wanted to name the settlement Boston.

Which Italian scholar is credited as the first famous coin collector?

Emperor Augustus gave old coins to friends at festivals.

The word 'numismatics' ultimately comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Numismatics derives from Greek nomisma, 'current coin' or 'custom', itself from nomos, 'law'; the word reached English through French numismatique in 1792.

Which Latin phrase on the edge of some British coins means 'an ornament and a safeguard'?

Decus et Tutamen, 'an ornament and a safeguard', was first lettered on the edge of Charles II's 1662 crown to deter clipping and later on the 1983 pound coin.

The phrase 'not worth a plugged nickel' refers to what?

A plugged nickel was a coin with its metal core removed and filled with cheaper metal, a form of debasement that left it worth next to nothing.

The English word 'cash' originally meant what?

Cash first meant a money box: it entered English around 1590 from French caisse and Italian cassa, from Latin capsa, 'box', before shifting to the money itself.

'Bankruptcy' derives from an Italian phrase meaning what?

Banca rotta referred to a moneylender's broken bench.

The word 'salary' comes from Latin salarium, a term connected to which commodity?

Salary derives from Latin salarium, a Roman soldier's allowance, formed from sal, 'salt'; how far the allowance was actually paid in salt is debated, but the root is not.

Which is the world's oldest existing retail bank, founded in 1472?

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472 as a charitable lender for Siena's poor, is the oldest bank in continuous operation; Berenberg (1590) is the oldest merchant bank.

From 1150, which order issued letters of credit to pilgrims, an early form of banking?

The Knights Templar let pilgrims deposit valuables at a Templar house in Europe and draw funds in the Holy Land against a letter of credit, an early cheque system.

On a medieval split tally stick, what was the longer part held by the lender called?

The lender kept the longer piece, called the stock; the shorter foil went to the borrower, and the matching grain and notches proved the debt.

Split tally sticks were typically made from which wood?

Exchequer tallies were typically cut from hazel; notches were made for the sum, then the stick was split lengthwise so both halves carried the same record.

Wampum beads were originally made from which shellfish?

Purple wampum beads were cut from the quahog clam's shell and white ones from the channeled whelk; purple beads were valued at about twice the white.

The Roman denarius takes its name from a Latin word meaning what?

Denarius means 'containing ten' because the coin was first worth ten bronze asses; it was retariffed to sixteen asses around 141 BC.

Which modern words for money descend from 'denarius'?

Spanish dinero and Portuguese dinheiro descend from Latin denarius, as do Italian denaro and the Arabic dinar; dollar and thaler come from the Bohemian mining town of Joachimsthal.

A Roman sestertius was worth how many asses?

Its name means 'two and one half'.

The Roman aureus was replaced in the early 4th century by which gold coin?

Constantine struck the solidus at 72 to the Roman pound.

In the Bible, King Solomon received how many gold talents per year?

1 Kings 10:14 puts Solomon's yearly gold income at 666 talents, well over 20 tonnes of gold; a Hebrew talent was about 3,000 shekels.

The two 'mites' of the widow's offering were together worth which smallest Roman coin?

Mark 12:42 says the widow's two lepta together made a quadrans, the smallest Roman bronze coin, worth a quarter of an as or one sixty-fourth of a denarius.

Judas's thirty pieces of silver were used to buy what, according to Matthew?

Matthew 27:7 says the chief priests used the thirty pieces of silver to buy the potter's field as a burial ground for foreigners, hence its name, the Field of Blood.

Charon's obol was a coin placed where on a dead person?

Charon's obol was placed in or on the mouth of the dead to pay the ferryman Charon for the crossing to Hades; Greek burials with coins in the mouth date from the 5th century BC.

Which Byzantine emperor abolished the nomisma in 1092 and replaced it with the hyperpyron?

Alexios I Komnenos reformed the debased coinage in 1092, replacing the nomisma with the hyperpyron, a 20.5-carat gold coin that Western traders called the bezant.

The Florentine florin was first minted in which year?

Florence first struck the gold florin in 1252; it took its name from the city's lily (fiore) on one face, with John the Baptist on the other.

The gold ducat originated in which city in 1284?

Venice first struck the gold ducat in 1284 under Doge Giovanni Dandolo; the name comes from Medieval Latin ducatus, 'relating to a duke', a nod to the Doge.

What gave the Spanish dollar its famous numerical nickname?

It became the first world currency by the 16th century.

Spanish dollars cut into eighths gave American English which slang term for one-eighth of a dollar?

A bit was one eighth of a Spanish dollar, 12.5 cents; cutting the coin into wedges is why a US quarter came to be called 'two bits'.

Which French king introduced the gold coin bearing his name in 1640?

Louis XIII introduced the gold louis d'or in 1640, engraved by Jean Warin, to replace the franc that had existed in theory since John II.

Every Maria Theresa thaler minted since the empress died bears what date?

Every Maria Theresa thaler struck since her death in 1780 carries the date 1780; the coin has been used in world trade continuously since 1741.

The British guinea took its name from what?

The guinea took its name from the West African region supplying its gold, shipped by the Royal African Company, whose elephant badge appeared on the coin; it was struck from 1663 to 1814.

From 1717 to 1816 the guinea was officially worth how many shillings?

In 1717 Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, fixed the guinea at 21 shillings, one pound and one shilling; it stayed there until the 1816 gold standard.

The gold sovereign, struck since 1817, shows which scene on its reverse?

The sovereign's reverse shows Benedetto Pistrucci's Saint George and the Dragon, first used in 1817; his initials B.P. appear beside the date in the exergue.

Which bird replaced Britannia on the reverse of the British farthing in 1937?

The wren, one of Britain's smallest birds, went on the reverse of its smallest coin, the farthing, in 1937 and stayed until the coin was demonetised at the end of 1960.

Under the £sd system, how many denarii (pence) made a libra (pound)?

240 pence made a pound: 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound, a ratio inherited from the Carolingian livre, sou and denier.

Which Anglo-Saxon king adopted the Frankish librae, solidi and denarii standard in Britain?

Offa of Mercia (r. 757–796) introduced a silver penny on the Frankish model, 240 to the pound of silver, the system that lasted in Britain until 1971.

On what date was Decimal Day, when the UK and Ireland decimalised their currencies?

Decimal Day was 15 February 1971: the shilling went and the pound was split into 100 new pence in both the UK and Ireland.

The Royal Mint moved from London to which Welsh town in 1968?

The Royal Mint began striking coins at Llantrisant in South Wales in 1968 to handle decimalisation; the last coin was struck at Tower Hill in London in 1975.

The Bank of England was privately owned until it was nationalised in which year?

The Bank of England Act 1946, passed by Attlee's Labour government, brought the bank into public ownership on 1 March 1946, 252 years after its founding in 1694.

The Krugerrand was first minted on 3 July of which year?

The first Krugerrand was struck on 3 July 1967 by the South African Mint; it shows Paul Kruger on the obverse and a springbok on the reverse.

How many 1933 double eagles are known to survive?

13 are known: two in the Smithsonian, the ten seized from the Langbord family in 2005, and the Weitzman specimen, the only one legal to own privately.

The 1933 double eagle sold at Sotheby's in June 2021 for how much?

The Weitzman 1933 double eagle fetched $18.9 million at Sotheby's in New York on 8 June 2021; nearly all of the 445,500 struck were melted down.

Roughly how much gold does the Fort Knox depository hold?

Fort Knox holds about 147.3 million troy ounces, roughly 4,580 tonnes, a little over half of the US Treasury's 261.5 million ounces.

Which documents were stored at Fort Knox for safekeeping during World War II?

The US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were held at Fort Knox from December 1941 until October 1944; a Gutenberg Bible and Lincoln Cathedral's Magna Carta were kept there too.

The US Treasury built the Fort Knox depository in which year?

The US Bullion Depository at Fort Knox was completed in December 1936 at a cost of about $560,000; the first gold shipments arrived by rail in January 1937.

Which country was the world's largest gold producer in 2023?

China was the largest gold producer in 2023 at roughly 370 tonnes, ahead of Russia and Australia at about 310 and 290; South Africa had led the world until 2006.

Gold's chemical symbol Au is taken from which Latin word for the metal?

Aurum is Latin for gold; its Proto-Indo-European ancestor meant 'glow'.

A troy ounce, the standard unit for precious metals, equals about how many grams?

A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, about 10% heavier than the 28.35-gram avoirdupois ounce used for everyday goods.

Troy weight is generally thought to take its name from which French town?

Troy weight is thought to be named after Troyes, the Champagne fair town where English merchants traded from at least the early 9th century.

The Welcome Stranger, the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, was dug up where in 1869?

It had to be broken into three pieces on an anvil to be weighed.

Roughly how many people flocked to California in the gold rush of 1848 to 1855?

About 300,000 people came to California between 1848 and 1855; the 'forty-niners' took their name from the peak year of 1849, when some 90,000 arrived.

Which town was founded at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers during the 1896 to 1898 gold rush?

Dawson City grew up in 1896–98 where the Klondike meets the Yukon, close to the Bonanza Creek strike; it served as Yukon's capital until 1953.

The legend of El Dorado, 'the Golden One', is associated with which people?

The Muisca of the Colombian highlands inspired El Dorado: their new ruler was said to cover himself in gold dust and wash it off in Lake Guatavita.

King Midas, of the golden touch, ruled which ancient kingdom?

Midas was the legendary king of Phrygia in central Anatolia; his father Gordias gave his name to the Gordian Knot at the capital, Gordium.

Croesus, proverbially rich, was the last king of which kingdom?

Croesus ruled Lydia from its capital Sardis until Cyrus the Great defeated him around 546 BC; Lydia had struck the world's first coins about a century earlier.

Mansa Musa, often called the richest person in history, ruled which empire?

Mali was probably the world's largest gold producer at the time.

Who became the world's first confirmed billionaire, in 1916?

John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil fortune made him the first confirmed billionaire in 1916; the trust had controlled about 90% of US refining by 1900.

Carnegie's 1901 sale to J. P. Morgan created which corporation, the first capitalised above $1 billion?

U.S. Steel, formed in 1901 from Carnegie Steel and other firms, was the first company capitalised at over $1 billion, with $1.4 billion in stock and bonds.

The word 'millionaire' was coined in French in 1719 to describe speculators in which scheme?

Millionnaire was coined in French in 1719 for speculators who grew rich overnight in John Law's Mississippi Bubble; the English word was in use by the 1820s.

In 2013, the richest 1% of adults were estimated to hold what share of world wealth?

The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2013 estimated the richest 1% held 46% of global wealth, and the richest 10% some 86%.

Which oldest running lottery has operated since 1726?

The Dutch Staatsloterij has run since 1726, the oldest lottery in continuous operation; money-prize lotteries began in Low Countries towns in the 15th century.

The earliest recorded signs of a lottery are keno slips from which Chinese dynasty?

Keno slips from the Han dynasty, dated between 205 and 187 BC, are the earliest recorded lottery; they are thought to have helped fund state projects such as the Great Wall.

What are the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot per play?

Five white balls from 69 and one red ball from 26.

The $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot of November 2022 was won with a ticket bought where?

The winning ticket for the $2.04 billion jackpot of 7 November 2022 was sold at Joe's Service Center in Altadena, California, to Edwin Castro.

Which Rome landmark collected an estimated €1,400,000 in thrown coins in 2016?

About 3,000 euros a day land in the Trevi Fountain, an estimated €1.4 million in 2016.

How are coins supposedly meant to be thrown into Rome's most famous fountain?

The custom featured in 1954's Three Coins in the Fountain.

The first documented cases of throwing coins into fountains date to which era?

Coin offerings at water go back to Roman times: Coventina's Well on Hadrian's Wall yielded over 13,000 Roman coins, and the sacred spring at Bath thousands more.

What is the Mandarin name for the red envelope of money given at Chinese New Year?

Hongbao, literally 'red packet', is the Mandarin name; Cantonese speakers say lai see, and the cash inside is traditionally an even amount that avoids the number four.

According to a 2013 Visa survey, how much did American children get per tooth from the tooth fairy?

Visa's 2013 survey put the going rate at $3.70 a tooth, up from $3.00 the year before; the earliest record of the tradition is a 1908 Chicago Daily Tribune item.

Monopoly derives from The Landlord's Game, created in 1903 by whom?

Lizzie Magie designed The Landlord's Game in 1903 and patented it in 1904 to demonstrate Henry George's single-tax theory; Charles Darrow later sold a version as Monopoly.

The properties on the original Monopoly board were named after locations where?

Atlantic City, New Jersey supplied the street names; Parker Brothers first published the game in 1935.

Scrooge McDuck was created in 1947 by which Disney artist?

Carl Barks created Scrooge McDuck for the December 1947 story Christmas on Bear Mountain, where the miser tests Donald's nerve; Don Rosa later wrote his life story.

Scrooge McDuck's Duckburg lies in which fictional US state?

Calisota, Carl Barks's fictional state, blends California and Minnesota; Barks first named it in the 1952 story The Gilded Man.

Pink Floyd's 'Money' is famous for which unusual time signature?

Money runs mostly in 7/4, switching to 4/4 for the guitar solo; it opened side two of The Dark Side of the Moon and became Pink Floyd's first US hit.

The Color of Money is a sequel to which 1961 film?

The Color of Money (1986) continues The Hustler (1961); Paul Newman won his only competitive Oscar for reprising pool shark Fast Eddie Felson.

Prisoners at which concentration camp forged the Bank of England notes of Operation Bernhard?

Jewish prisoners at Sachsenhausen, north of Berlin, forged nearly nine million Bank of England notes for Operation Bernhard between 1942 and 1945; the scheme inspired the 2007 film The Counterfeiters.

The 1963 Great Train Robbery netted roughly how much?

The gang took about £2.61 million from the Glasgow–London Royal Mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, on 8 August 1963; Bruce Reynolds led them.

Where did the Great Train Robbers hide afterwards?

The gang hid at Leatherslade Farm near Oakley, Buckinghamshire, about 27 miles from the scene; the fingerprints they left there led police to most of them.

The 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery took gold, diamonds and cash worth how much from a warehouse near Heathrow?

The Brink's-Mat gang took about £26 million in gold, diamonds and cash on 26 November 1983; the three tonnes of gold were smelted and laundered and most was never recovered.

Burglars tunnelled into a Banco Central vault and took about R$160,000,000 in which Brazilian city in 2005?

Fortaleza: in August 2005 a gang dug a 78-metre tunnel from a rented house into the Banco Central branch and took about R$164.7 million, roughly US$70 million.

What was the US Secret Service's initial responsibility when founded?

Counterfeiting was rampant after the Civil War.

Counterfeiting has been called what?

Counterfeiting is often called 'the world's second-oldest profession' because it is nearly as old as money: plated fakes of Lydia's first coins from the 7th century BC have been found.

Which prohibition-era gangster's tax conviction pushed law enforcement to track dirty money?

Al Capone's conviction for tax evasion pushed the state to track and confiscate money; dedicated anti-money-laundering laws only arrived in the 1980s.

Swiss banking secrecy was codified in law in which year?

The Swiss Federal Banking Act of 1934 made breaching bank secrecy a criminal offence; the custom goes back to a 1713 Geneva rule forbidding bankers to reveal client details.

Which territory claims to be the first tax haven, thanks to 1935 offshore company legislation?

Bermuda claims to be the first tax haven on the strength of its 1935 exempted-company legislation, drafted by the law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman.

The Panama Papers were leaked from which law firm?

11.5 million documents were published from April 2016.

Which prime minister introduced Britain's modern income tax in his December 1798 budget?

William Pitt the Younger announced the tax in his budget of December 1798, levied from 1799 at two old pence in the pound on incomes over £60, to pay for the war against Revolutionary France.

The Saladin tithe of 1188 was levied by Henry II to fund what?

The Saladin tithe of 1188 took a tenth of revenues and movable goods to fund the Third Crusade after Saladin captured Jerusalem in 1187; it was among the first recorded taxes on income.

The US Sixteenth Amendment, allowing a federal income tax, was ratified in which year?

The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified on 3 February 1913, overturning the Supreme Court's 1895 Pollock decision that had struck down the 1894 income tax.

England's window tax, which led owners to brick up windows, ran from 1696 until which year?

The window tax ran from 1696 until its repeal in 1851, when it was replaced by a house duty; Scotland was only brought under it in 1748.

Danegeld was a tax raised to pay off which raiders?

The Vikings were bought off with Danegeld, literally 'Dane yield'; after 1016 it became a permanent land tax for defence.

Which 1494 book by Luca Pacioli gives the Rule of 72 for doubling money?

Pacioli's Summa de arithmetica (1494), also the first printed account of double-entry bookkeeping, states the Rule of 72: divide 72 by the interest rate to get the doubling time.

In many historical societies, 'usury' meant what?

Usury originally meant charging any interest at all on a loan, condemned in Christian, Jewish and Islamic law; only later did the word narrow to excessive interest.

The Lincoln cent has borne Lincoln's profile since which year?

Victor David Brenner's Lincoln portrait went on the cent in 1909, the centennial of Lincoln's birth, the first real person on a regular-issue US coin; the Memorial reverse ran 1959–2008.

The first circulating US coins, distributed in March 1793, were how many copper cents?

The Philadelphia Mint delivered 11,178 copper Chain cents on 1 March 1793, the first coins struck for circulation under the Coinage Act of 1792.

US quarters minted before 1965 contained what proportion of silver?

Quarters struck before 1965 were 90% silver and 10% copper; the Coinage Act of 1965 switched them to a copper-nickel clad composition as silver prices rose.

Since 1964 the US half dollar has depicted which president?

John F. Kennedy replaced Benjamin Franklin on the half dollar in 1964, months after his assassination; that first year's coins were 90% silver.

Which two silver dollar series were the most widely produced of the 19th and 20th centuries?

The Morgan dollar (1878–1921) and the Peace dollar (1921–1935) were struck by the hundreds of millions between them; dollar coins from the 1971 Eisenhower on have been mostly clad base metal.

Which country became the first to have a full set of circulating polymer banknotes, in 1996?

Australia completed its switch to polymer with the $100 note in 1996, having issued the world's first polymer banknote, the bicentennial $10, in 1988.

Who invented the first mechanical cash register in 1879?

James Ritty, a Dayton saloon owner who suspected his bartenders of pocketing cash, patented 'Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier' in 1879; John Patterson bought the business and built NCR on it.

Hero of Alexandria's 1st-century coin-operated machine dispensed what?

The first modern vending machines, in 1880s England, sold postcards.

Charles Fey's pioneering slot machine was named after which symbol on its reels?

Fey's Liberty Bell, built in San Francisco between 1887 and 1895, had three reels of horseshoes, stars, diamonds, spades, hearts and a cracked Liberty Bell; three bells paid the top prize of ten nickels.

In American slang, a $100 note is a C-note or, after its portrait, a what?

A Benjamin, or Benji, takes its name from the $100 note's portrait of Benjamin Franklin; a $20 is a Jackson and a $50 a Grant.

In American slang, which note is a 'sawbuck'?

A sawbuck is a $10 bill, named for the X-shaped sawhorse that resembled the Roman numeral X on early ten-dollar notes; a $5 is a fin.

British slang for a pound is thought to derive from which Latin phrase?

'Quid' is usually traced to the Latin quid pro quo, 'something for something', though the origin is uncertain; a pound is also a 'nicker'.

In British slang, how much is a 'pony'?

A pony is £25 and a monkey £500, slang recorded since the late 18th and 19th centuries; a ton is £100.

In British slang, a £50 note is a 'bullseye', named after what?

£100 is a 'ton'.

The 'Bradman' nickname for an old paper $100 note honoured what?

It was also the 'grey ghost'.

In pre-decimal British slang, what coin was a 'tanner'?

A tanner was a sixpence; a shilling was a 'bob', a crown (five shillings) a 'dollar' and the half-crown 'half a dollar'.

A South African slang term for rands, 'bokke', comes from what?

English speakers just say 'bucks'.

In 17th-century England, sums paid by overnight guests to a host's servants were called what?

Vails were the sums guests gave a household's servants on leaving; the custom grew so burdensome that 1760s campaigns sought to abolish it, and tipping spread to London coffeehouses.

The word 'tip', meaning to give a gratuity, originated in the cant of which group?

'Tip' began as thieves' cant around 1600 meaning simply 'to give or hand over', before narrowing to a gratuity in the 18th century; the 'To Insure Promptness' story is a myth.

What were the Song dynasty's banknotes, the earliest paper money in China, called?

Jiaozi, a name now better known for dumplings, grew out of promissory notes merchants had used since the 7th century and circulated alongside heavy strings of copper coins.

In which year was paper money first introduced in Europe, in Sweden?

Sweden's 1661 notes were Europe's first paper money; copper-rich Sweden had been minting coins weighing several kilograms, so notes were a relief for anyone carrying cash.

The ancient Mesopotamian shekel was a unit of weight based on about 160 grains of which crop?

Barley it was, about 160 grains' worth; the term dates to roughly 3000 BC, long before Herodotus credited the Lydians with the first gold and silver coins around 650 to 600 BC.