Total Trivia

[desideratum]

The ridges on the edges of coins -- known as Reeding -- dates back to when coins were made of precious metals.

Coins made from gold & silver, to a lesser degree the copper and bronze coins; people would file a little metal off of each coin they had. Over a short period of time they would collect a nice pile of gold or silver shavings. The coins continued to be circulated and accepted at face value, even though they were a little lighter.

The reeding can detect if a coin had been altered or is counterfeit. Some coins also used lettering around the edges, but was far more expensive to produce.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Florence, Italy was the first city to mint its own gold coins in 1252. The fiorino became known as the florence, then the florin.
Until decimalisation in 1970 the UK two shilling coin was known as the florin.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Cleopatra was no older than 18 when she became the queen of Egypt. Despite her glamorous image today, she is depicted on ancient coins with a long hooked nose and masculine features.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The scientific study of coins is known as "numismatics", a term derived from the Greek word nomisma, meaning a coin or a currency.

 

[Daizie]

Although most of the paper money issued by our government have portraits of presidents, not all do. The presidents who do appear on bills are:

George Washington on the $1;
Thomas Jefferson on the $2;
Abraham Lincoln on the $5;
Andrew Jackson on the $20;
Ulysses S. Grant on the $50;
William McKinley on the $500;
Grover Cleveland on the $1,000;
James Madison on the $5,000;
Woodrow Wilson on the $100,000.

Others who have been honored on American bills are:
Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington, on the $10;
Benjamin Franklin, diplomat, statesman, inventor, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, on the $100;
Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln, on the $10,000.

 

[fire_breeze]

Silver coins fell from the skies on to the town of Gorky, Russia in 1940. A tornado had lifted up an old money chest and dropped the coins it contained as the wind carried it long

 

[fire_breeze]

For a time, it was the custom to use eggs as a form of currency in France. Once a year, poverty-stricken clerics and students trudged through the streets of Paris, carrying an egg basket, and collected what they could

 

[Daizie]

The $100,000 bill is the highest denomination of paper money our government has ever printed. It was issued in 1934 and was used mainly for bank transactions.

Since 1969, only bills in denominations of $1 to $100 have been issued. Of these, the $1 and $5 bills are the most widely used and remain in circulation only for a period of one year to 18 months.

 

[fire_breeze]

Scientists have sniffed out the reason for the musty, "metallic" odor you smell after handling coins or touching metal objects. A new study finds that the smell of iron is, ironically, a type of human body odor, created by the breakdown of oils in skin after touching objects that contain the element. When touching objects made of iron, perspiration from skin causes the iron atoms to gain two electrons. The doubly negative iron atoms react with oil in skin, causing them to decompose, forming 1-octen-2-one

 

[Daizie]

The so-called copper penny is not pure copper, and the nickel is not pure nickel!

A United States penny is 95 percent copper and five percent zinc. A nickel is three- quarters copper and only one- quarter nickel. The dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar coins that are minted today do not contain silver.

They are made of a copper core covered with a layer of metal containing three-quarters copper and one-quarter nickel.

 

[Daizie]

What Does the Government Do with Old Money?

Every day, it collects worn and dirty bills, 4-5 tons of them! Which are too old and worn to be used. These bills are destroyed in a machine called a macerator, which shreds $1,000,000 a minute into tiny confetti-sized pieces of paper.

Not all damaged money is worthless. If, for example, you have a bill with part of it torn away, you can redeem it. If you have at least 3/5 of the bill, you can send it to the Treasury Department and get a fresh, new bill of the same value. If you have more than 2/5 of the bill but less than 3/5, you can redeem it for half the value of the bill.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Coined phrases...

"A fool and his money are soon parted."
~A Defense of Government, by John Bridges (1587)

"Money speaks."
~The Rover, by Aphra Behn (1681)

"I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a strong hold on the affections of men..."
~Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

"There are some things that money cannot buy."
~The New York Times (May 31, 1864).

"Money isn't everything."
~Saturday Evening Post (June 18, 1870)

"The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
~Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain (1894).

"Money doesn't grow on trees."
~The Washington Post (July 17, 1906)

"We're in the money."
~Gold Digger's Song, by Al Dubin (1933)

"Always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you."
~Furthermore: A Very Honorable Guy, by Damon Runyon (1938)

"Put your money where your mouth is."
~The New York Times (Feb. 20, 1945)

"The buck stops here."
~President Harry S. Truman's campaign slogan (1948).

"Money makes the world go around."
~Money, Money, by Fred Ebb (1966)

"For I don't care too much for money,
For money can't buy me love."
~Can't Buy Me Love, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (1964)

"Show me the money!"
~Jerry Maguire, by Cameron Crowe (1996)

"You're so money!
~Swingers, by Jon Favreau (1996)

"Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game."
~Trump: Art of the Deal, by Donald J. Trump and Tony Schwartz (1987)

"I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut."
~Author unknown

"As phony as a three-dollar bill."
~Author unknown

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Coins - also variously spelled coynes, coigns, coignes or quoins - were the blank, usually circular, disks from which money was minted; the 14th century meaning of coin, which meant wedge.
The wedge-shaped dies which were used to stamp the blanks were called coins and the metal blanks and the subsequent 'coined' money took their name from them.

 

[MikeCasanova]

The first piece of metal to be considered a coin was invented in Lydia, Turkey, in 670 B.C. The first recorded use of money was someone paying twelve shekels to Hammurabi "for the use of his daughter."

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is commonly believed to be the only English sentence devised to include all the letters of the alphabet. However, typesetters and designers have alternatively employed "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs."

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

"em" - a unit for measuring the amount of printed matter in a line, usually equal to the nominal width of the letter "M".

 

[smotherman]

In your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights

 

[smotherman]

crocodile cannot stick out it's tongue.

 

[smotherman]

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The guppy gets its name from the man who discovered it and presented specimens to the British Museum, naturalist R. J. L. Guppy of Trinidad.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

In the Middle Ages, chicken soup was believed to be an aphrodisiac.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

One 75-watt bulb gives more light than three 25-watt bulbs.

 

[MSH2]

The Romans believed that Honey and Almonds were both aphrodisiacs. And a baked cake with honey and almonds was supposed to be the equivalent of Viagra

 

[ManInIronMask]

Birds always take off and land against the direction in which the wind is blowing. Always.

Funny, considering I've got the Byrds on my signature

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Wild cabbage was traditionally recommended as an aphrodisiac.