120 free Money trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This money trivia quiz is about money in the broadest sense: where the word comes from, what people have used as cash through history, the coins and notes that became legends, the slang we use for it, the gold it was backed by, the ways it has been stolen, taxed and given away, and the characters (real and cartoon) famous for hoarding it. The easy questions are ones most people know: what a buck is, what Monopoly is based on, why Fort Knox is famous, and which coin is flipped 'heads or tails'. From there it gets harder: Juno Moneta's temple, tally sticks and the fire that burned Parliament, the Templars' letters of credit, denarii and sestertii, the widow's mite and Charon's obol, the guinea's 21 shillings, the farthing's wren, the 1933 double eagle that sold for $18.9 million, Krugerrands and sovereigns, Operation Bernhard, the Great Train Robbery, Brink's-Mat, the window tax, Danegeld, Pacioli's Rule of 72, the Welcome Stranger nugget, the Klondike stampede, Mansa Musa and the first billionaire. If you want exchange rates and banknote design, our Currency quiz covers that; for markets and banking, try Finance. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the coins, people, events and customs named before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question.
30 of 120 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'money' comes from the Latin moneta, linked to the temple of which goddess?
Juno
Rome's mint stood at the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline.
Q 02Which of these is NOT one of the primary functions of money?
Standard of beauty
A fourth function sometimes listed is standard of deferred payment.
Q 03Accounting records more than 7,000 years old, predating coins, have been found where?
Mesopotamia
Money of account predates coinage by thousands of years.
Q 04Lacking precious metals, 17th-century Sweden produced 'plate money' made of what?
Large slabs of copper
Some slabs were 50 cm or more across.
Q 05The 'heads' side of a coin is formally called what?
Obverse
The reverse is 'tails'.
Q 06The Romans called coin flipping navia aut caput, meaning what?
Ship or head
Some coins had a ship on one side and the emperor's head on the other.
Q 07Which US city's name was decided by an 1845 coin toss, the penny itself kept in a museum?
Portland, Oregon
Pettygrove beat Lovejoy, who wanted to call it Boston.
Q 08Which Italian scholar is credited as the first famous coin collector?
Petrarch
Emperor Augustus gave old coins to friends at festivals.
Q 09The word 'numismatics' ultimately comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Current coin or custom
It reached English via French in 1792.
Q 10Which Latin phrase on the edge of some British coins means 'an ornament and a safeguard'?
Decus et Tutamen
The lettered edge protected against clipping.
Q 11The phrase 'not worth a plugged nickel' refers to what?
A coin with its metal core removed and filled
Plugging was one way of debasing coins.
Q 12The English word 'cash' originally meant what?
Money box
It comes from French caisse and ultimately Latin capsa, 'box'.
Q 13'Bankruptcy' derives from an Italian phrase meaning what?
Broken bank
Banca rotta referred to a moneylender's broken bench.
Q 14The word 'bank' comes from Old Italian banco, meaning what?
Q 21Which modern words for money descend from 'denarius'?
Dinero and dinheiro
Italian denaro and Slovene denar too.
Q 22A Roman sestertius was worth how many asses?
Two and a half
Its name means 'two and one half'.
Q 23The Roman aureus was replaced in the early 4th century by which gold coin?
Solidus
Constantine struck the solidus at 72 to the Roman pound.
Q 24In the Bible, King Solomon received how many gold talents per year?
Table
Florentine bankers worked at benches covered with green cloth.
Q 15Which is the world's oldest existing retail bank, founded in 1472?
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Berenberg, founded 1590, is the oldest merchant bank.
Q 16From 1150, which order issued letters of credit to pilgrims, an early form of banking?
Knights Templar
It may have been the first use of bank cheques.
Q 17On a medieval split tally stick, what was the longer part held by the lender called?
Stock
The shorter portion, the foil, went to the borrower.
Q 18Split tally sticks were typically made from which wood?
Hazel
Notches were cut and the stick split lengthwise.
Q 19Wampum beads were originally made from which shellfish?
Quahog clam
White beads came from the channeled whelk.
Q 20The Roman denarius takes its name from a Latin word meaning what?
Containing ten
It was originally worth ten asses.
666
A talent was 3,000 shekels.
Q 25The two 'mites' of the widow's offering were together worth which smallest Roman coin?
A quadrans
A lepton was worth about six minutes of a day's wage.
Q 26Judas's thirty pieces of silver were used to buy what, according to Matthew?
A potter's field
Matthew presents it as fulfilment of a prophecy of Zechariah.
Q 27Charon's obol was a coin placed where on a dead person?
In or on the mouth
It paid the ferryman across the river of the dead.
Q 28Which Byzantine emperor abolished the nomisma in 1092 and replaced it with the hyperpyron?
Alexios I Komnenos
The hyperpyron also became known as a bezant.
Q 29The Florentine florin was first minted in which year?
1252
Its name comes from the city's lily emblem.
Q 30The gold ducat originated in which city in 1284?
Venice
Its name comes from Medieval Latin for 'relating to a duke'.