Currency Trivia
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189 free Currency trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
60 free currency trivia questions with answers. Sixty questions on currency, split roughly between the United States and the rest of the world. The US currency trivia covers who is on the $2 and $100 bills, when the big denominations were retired, why the penny went to zinc, what a nickel is really made of, the origin of the dollar sign and 'two bits', 'In God We Trust', the Mint, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the dollar coins nobody wanted. The world round takes in the euro's name and symbol, the pound's claim to be the oldest currency in use, the seven-sided 50p, polymer notes, the loonie, the highest-valued unit on Earth, and the disasters: Weimar marks, the Hungarian pengő and Zimbabwe's 100-trillion-dollar note. Older history gets a look too, from Lydian electrum and Song-dynasty paper to cowrie shells, Yap's rai stones and the pig-shaped money boxes of Java. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the currencies, coins and events involved, and the sentence that establishes it is shown under each explanation. Play solo or use it as a money round for a pub quiz or classroom.
30 of 189 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country's currency is the yen?
Japan
The yen is Japan's currency, adopted in 1871 to replace the feudal-era coinage and originally divided into 100 sen.
Q 02Sterling, the money of the United Kingdom, holds which record?
Oldest still in continuous use
Its name goes back to the medieval silver penny, 240 of which made a 'pound of sterlings'.
Q 03Since 1971 the pound has been divided into how many pence?
100
Before decimalisation there were 240 pence to the pound, twelve to a shilling and twenty shillings to a pound.
Q 04Physical euro coins and banknotes first entered circulation on what date?
1 January 2002
Euro notes and coins entered circulation on 1 January 2002, three years after the currency launched electronically in 1999; national cash was withdrawn by the end of February 2002.
Q 05The name 'euro' was officially adopted in December 1995 at a summit in which city?
Madrid
The Madrid European Council of December 1995 chose the name 'euro' over the working name ECU, at the suggestion of German finance minister Theo Waigel.
Q 06The euro sign € is based on which Greek letter?
Epsilon
The European Commission said the € sign was inspired by the Greek letter epsilon, a nod to the cradle of European civilisation, with two parallel bars signifying stability.
Q 07In 2026, which currency had the highest value per unit in the world?
Kuwaiti dinar
The Kuwaiti dinar, which replaced the Gulf rupee in 1961, bought more than $3 in 2026, comfortably ahead of the Bahraini dinar at about $2.65.
Q 08The Swiss franc is legal tender in Switzerland and which other country?
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein has used the Swiss franc as legal tender since 1924, when it dropped the Austrian krone after the First World War and tied itself to Switzerland.
Q 09India adopted a new rupee sign ₹ in 2010, combining a Devanagari consonant with which Latin letter?
R
Designer D. Udaya Kumar merged the Devanagari 'ra' with a Latin capital R stripped of its vertical bar; the two horizontal strokes evoke the Indian tricolour.
Q 10What is the base unit of China's renminbi?
Yuan
The yuan is the renminbi's base unit, divided into 10 jiao and 100 fen; its character means 'round', after the silver dollars it replaced.
Q 11Canadians call their one-dollar coin the 'loonie' because of which bird on the reverse?
Common loon
A common loon swims on the reverse of the dollar coin that replaced Canada's paper dollar in 1987, and the nickname 'loonie' stuck almost at once.
Q 12Modern polymer banknotes were first issued as currency in which country, in 1988?
Australia
They were developed with the CSIRO and the University of Melbourne; by 1996 every Australian note was plastic.
Q 13The British 50p coin, introduced in 1969, was the world's first coin with how many sides?
Seven
The 50p is a seven-sided equilateral-curve heptagon, a shape with constant width so it rolls through vending machines; it replaced the ten-shilling note in 1969.
Q 21Which president appears on the US $2 bill?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson fronts the $2 bill, and its reverse shows John Trumbull's painting of the Declaration of Independence being presented to Congress in 1776.
Q 22The $2 bill was discontinued in 1966 and returned in what year as a Federal Reserve Note?
1976
The $2 Federal Reserve Note debuted on 13 April 1976, Jefferson's birthday, for the Bicentennial; it is printed in small runs, so many people wrongly assume it was withdrawn.
Q 23'In God We Trust' first appeared on a US coin in 1864. Which coin?
The two-cent piece
It did not become the official national motto until 1956, when it replaced E pluribus unum.
Q 14When Australia went decimal in 1966, how many new dollars did each old pound become?
Two
Each Australian pound became two dollars, so one dollar equalled ten shillings; a 1902 parliamentary committee had recommended decimalisation 64 years earlier.
Q 15Which building appears on the reverse of the US five-cent coin?
Monticello
Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, has been on the reverse of the Jefferson nickel since 1938, apart from the 2004-05 Westward Journey designs.
Q 16The nickname 'greenback' for US bills originally referred to which Civil War-era issue?
Demand Notes
The Demand Notes of 1861, printed with green backs to finance the Civil War, earned the nickname, which then passed to the United States Notes of 1862.
Q 17The Spanish dollar had eight reales, so what nickname does a US quarter carry?
Two bits
A 'bit' was one real, an eighth of a Spanish dollar, so a quarter dollar was two bits, a phrase kept alive by 'shave and a haircut, two bits'.
Q 18The dollar sign $ first appears in 1770s business letters referring to which coin?
The Spanish American peso
The sign grew out of the handwritten abbreviation 'ps' for pesos, the Spanish American peso or 'piece of eight' that became the model for the US dollar.
Q 19Whose portrait is on the US $100 bill?
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin has appeared on the $100 Federal Reserve Note since the 1914 series, and Independence Hall has been on its reverse since 1928.
Q 20Since July 1969, what is the largest denomination of US currency in circulation?
$100
The $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 notes were retired that day, though they remain legal tender.
Q 24'In God We Trust' first appeared on a US bill in 1957. Which one?
The $1 silver certificate
Congress had made the phrase the national motto the year before.
Q 25The average US $1 bill stays in circulation for roughly how long before wearing out?
About 6.6 years
The Federal Reserve estimates an average $1 note lasts about 6.6 years before it is too worn to use, while a $100 note lasts more than 20 years.
Q 26In 1991 the Bureau of Engraving and Printing opened its second currency plant in which city?
Fort Worth
The Bureau's Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, opened in 1991; notes printed there carry a small 'FW' beside the front plate number.
Q 27The first United States Mint was established in 1792 in which city?
Philadelphia
The first Mint opened in Philadelphia, then the national capital, under the Coinage Act of 1792, with David Rittenhouse as its first director.
Q 28US Federal Reserve Notes are printed on paper made from what?
Cotton fibre
The paper is 75 percent cotton fibre and 25 percent linen, supplied by Crane & Co., which is why a bill survives the washing machine when newsprint does not.
Q 29Why did the US Mint switch the penny to a zinc core in 1982?
Its metal was worth more than its face value
The modern cent weighs 2.5 grams against 3.11 for the old 95% copper version still found in change.
Q 30What is the modern US five-cent coin actually made of?
75% copper, 25% nickel
The nickel is 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel, a cupronickel alloy used since the Shield nickel of 1866, except for the silver-alloy 'war nickels' of 1942 to 1945.