120 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 of these is NOT one of the primary functions of money?

A fourth function sometimes listed is standard of deferred payment.

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

Money of account predates coinage by thousands of years.

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

Some slabs were 50 cm or more across.

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

The reverse is 'tails'.

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

Some coins had a ship on one side and the emperor's head on the other.

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

Pettygrove beat Lovejoy, who wanted to call it 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?

It reached English via French in 1792.

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

The lettered edge protected against clipping.

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

Plugging was one way of debasing coins.

The English word 'cash' originally meant what?

It comes from French caisse and ultimately Latin capsa, 'box'.

'Bankruptcy' derives from an Italian phrase meaning what?

Banca rotta referred to a moneylender's broken bench.

The word 'bank' comes from Old Italian banco, meaning what?

Florentine bankers worked at benches covered with green cloth.

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

Berenberg, founded 1590, is the oldest merchant bank.

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

It may have been the first use of bank cheques.

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

The shorter portion, the foil, went to the borrower.

Split tally sticks were typically made from which wood?

Notches were cut and the stick split lengthwise.

Wampum beads were originally made from which shellfish?

White beads came from the channeled whelk.

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

It was originally worth ten asses.

Which modern words for money descend from 'denarius'?

Italian denaro and Slovene denar too.

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?

A talent was 3,000 shekels.

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

A lepton was worth about six minutes of a day's wage.

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

Matthew presents it as fulfilment of a prophecy of Zechariah.

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

It paid the ferryman across the river of the dead.

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

The hyperpyron also became known as a bezant.

The Florentine florin was first minted in which year?

Its name comes from the city's lily emblem.

The gold ducat originated in which city in 1284?

Its name comes from Medieval Latin for 'relating to a duke'.

What gave the Spanish dollar its famous numerical nickname?

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

The doubloon was a gold coin worth how many escudos?

Its name comes from Spanish doblón, 'double'.

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

It replaced the franc that had circulated in theory since John II.

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

It has been used in world trade continuously since 1741.

The British guinea took its name from what?

It was minted from 1663 to 1814.

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

That is one pound and one shilling.

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

Designer Benedetto Pistrucci's initials appear beside the date.

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

The farthing was worth a quarter of a penny.

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

There were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound.

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

Charlemagne had imposed the ratios across Western Europe.

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

The shilling was abolished and the pound split into 100 new pence.

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

It had operated within the Tower of London for centuries.

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

The Attlee government did it.

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

It shows Paul Kruger on the obverse and a springbok on the reverse.

How many 1933 double eagles are known to survive?

Only the Weitzman Specimen may be privately owned.

The 1933 double eagle sold in June 2021 for how much, a record for any coin?

Nearly all of the 445,500 struck were melted down.

Roughly how much gold does the Fort Knox depository hold?

That is a little over half of the US government's gold.

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

A Gutenberg Bible and a copy of Magna Carta were kept there too.

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

The first gold shipments arrived in early 1937.

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

Russia and Australia came next.

Gold's chemical symbol Au comes from which Latin word?

Its Proto-Indo-European ancestor meant 'glow'.

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

It is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce.

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

English merchants traded at its fairs from at least the 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?

The 'forty-niners' were named for the peak year of 1849.

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

Its population went from 500 to about 17,000 in two years.

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

Their ruler was said to cover himself in gold dust and wash in a sacred lake.

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

His father Gordias tied the Gordian Knot.

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

He was defeated by Cyrus the Great after the siege of Sardis.

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?

Standard Oil controlled about 90% of US oil production by 1900.

Andrew Carnegie sold his steel company to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for how much?

It became the basis of U.S. Steel.

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

It is first recorded in English in The Times in 1795.

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

Around $18.5 trillion was estimated to sit in tax havens.

Which oldest running lottery has operated since 1726?

The first money-prize lotteries were held in the Low Countries in the 15th century.

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

They may have helped fund 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 record Powerball jackpot of $2.04 billion in 2022 was won with a ticket bought where?

Powerball's predecessor, Lotto America, began in 1988.

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

About 3,000 euros go in every day.

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?

Wishing wells may draw on folklore linking water to the otherworld.

In Chinese, the New Year red envelope is also called yasui qian, meaning what?

Hongbao in Mandarin, laisee in Cantonese.

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

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?

She wanted to demonstrate the single-tax theory of Henry George.

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

Parker Brothers first published the game in 1935.

Scrooge McDuck was created in 1947 by which Disney artist?

He first appeared as an antagonist in Christmas on Bear Mountain.

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

The name blends California and Minnesota.

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

It opened side two of The Dark Side of the Moon and became their first US hit.

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

Paul Newman finally won an Oscar reprising Fast Eddie Felson.

Estimates of the fake sterling printed by Operation Bernhard run from £132.6m up to what?

Concentration camp prisoners produced the notes at Sachsenhausen.

The 1963 Great Train Robbery netted roughly how much?

The gang of 15 was led by Bruce Reynolds.

Where did the Great Train Robbers hide afterwards?

It was 27 miles from the crime scene.

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

Most of the gold has never been recovered.

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

They tunnelled into the vault.

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

Counterfeiting was rampant after the Civil War.

Counterfeiting has been called what?

Plated fakes of the first Lydian coins have been found.

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

Dedicated anti-money-laundering laws only arrived in the 1980s.

Swiss banking secrecy was codified in law in which year?

Its roots go back to the early 1700s.

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

The law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman drafted it.

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?

It paid for weapons in the French Revolutionary War.

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

It is one of the first recorded taxes on income.

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

It overruled the Supreme Court's Pollock decision.

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

Scotland only introduced it in 1748.

Danegeld was a tax raised to pay off which raiders?

After 1016 it became a permanent land tax for defence.

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

A Babylonian clay tablet may be the first compound-interest problem.

In many historical societies, 'usury' meant what?

It was considered wrong or illegal in Christian, Jewish and Islamic law.

The Lincoln cent has borne Lincoln's profile since which year, the centennial of his birth?

The Lincoln Memorial reverse ran from 1959 to 2008.

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

They came from the new Mint in Philadelphia.

US quarters minted before 1965 contained what proportion of silver?

Later coins are clad composition.

Since 1964 the US half dollar has depicted which president?

1964 halves were 90% silver.

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

Modern dollar coins are clad metals.

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

It had issued the first polymer note in 1988.

Who invented the first mechanical cash register in 1879?

He suspected his staff of pocketing cash.

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?

He built it in San Francisco between 1887 and 1895.

Why are slot machines nicknamed 'one-armed bandits'?

In Britain they are fruit machines.

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

A $10 note is a sawbuck.

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

A five is a fin or half a sawbuck.

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

A pound may also be a 'nicker'.

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

A 'monkey' is £500 and 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 shilling was a 'bob' and a crown 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?

Tipping later spread to London coffeehouses.

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

Its earlier sense was simply 'to give or hand'.

What were the earliest Chinese banknotes of the Song dynasty called?

They grew out of promissory notes merchants had used since the 7th century and circulated alongside heavy strings of copper coins rather than replacing them.

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

Copper-rich Sweden had been minting coins weighing several kilograms, so notes were a relief for anyone who had to carry money around.

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

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.