|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Trivia ~ Man Made
~ Money ~
Why do dimes, quarters and half dollars have notched edges, while pennies and nickels do not?
The US Mint began putting notches on the edges of coins containing Gold and silver to discourage holders from shaving off small quantities of the precious metals. Dimes, quarters and half dollars are notched because they used to contain silver. Pennies and nickels aren't notched because the metals they contain are not valuable enough to shave.
The faces of portraits on paper money usually stare directly out at us, but on coins the portraits almost always face to the right or left. Why?
The reason for this artistic choice has to do with the way coins wear out. As a coin circulates it's the highest relief that wears down first. If the raised portrait on the "heads" side of the coin were straight-on, then the face's nose would vanish first followed immediately by the rest of the distinguishing marks on the face, leaving a blurry blank space. With the face in profile, it's usually the ear or side hairline that wears away first, leaving the rest of the face (and its distinctive profile) intact much longer.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge; a dime has one less groove!
What I want to know is who counted them. Don't tell Gore he may want a recount.
About the size of it
Money, it is said, is the measure of all things. A dollar, for example, is 6 1/8 inches by 2 5/8 inches. Put whatever you want to measure against the long side and you have a cheap ruler. Similarly, a penny's diameter is about ¾ inch and can be used to estimate other diameters when placed against the object to be measured.
Caution: Stretching a dollar or pinching pennies invalidates these numbers.
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom more often.
Americans worry about a big national debt and a government bureaucracy that never seems to stop growing.
In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson worried about the same things. After all, the number of government employees had grown to 130 and the debt had ballooned to all of $17 million, an amount equal to the hourly interest on the debt in recent times.
Today in Washington more people spend more money than that on a typical federal agency Christmas party.
The average income of a family in the USA in 1915 was $687 a year.
Among the 10 wealthiest countries in the world ranked by GDP per capita, the U. S. is only second, at $36,200. First is Luxembourg, with $36,400. Others in the top 10 include Bermuda, San Marino, Aruba and Monaco.
Yeah, but do they have Jerry Springer, Martha Stewart, "Jackass," "Fear Factor," or Wayne Newton? There’s more to life than money, don't you know....
Since 1874 the mints of the United States have been making currency for foreign governments, whose combined orders have at times exceeded the volume of domestic requirements.
It's not just the stock market that's been telegraphing "trouble" about the economy. The price of thoroughbreds has matched Wall Street's gyrations. Yearlings that sold for an average of $27,295 in 1994 were fetching $54,506 in 2000. But recent sales have seen 20 percent declines from a year ago.
Moral: If you invest in horses, don't expect stable prices.
There are 293 different ways to make change for a dollar.
With an exchange rate running at an average of 428,287.55 Ukranian Karbovanets to the dollar, total assets of just $5.62 will qualify a person as a Ukranian millionaire.
Do you know how a bill-changing machine determine that your bill isn't counterfeit?
Do you, like me, take it personally when one of your bills is rejected? Now I know why Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. The priests didn't need any competition in doling out the guilt.
In passing judgment, the machine checks for several characteristics. For instance, by passing a light through it, the changer examines your bill's gross density (my High School gym teacher would have scored high). It also uses light rays to check the alignment of thin lines embedded in your bill. A magnet generates a signal from the ink in your bill and it had better match the one characteristic of the ink used in printing real bills. The machine also measures the exact length of your bill.
It's a good thing the bill changer doesn't also measure the sweat on my palms while I await it's verdict. After 30 seconds I might sign any confession the thing printed out.
Besides normal taxes, Peter the Great of Russia also taxed: beards. souls, hats, boots, beehives, basements, chimneys, food, clothing, birth, marriage, and burial.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective:
A billion seconds ago, it was 31 years, 248 days ago
A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.
As bits of trivia are presented on my e-mail list I will add them here. See them first by sending an e-mail to twotreestrivia-subscribe@topica.com
If you have other good Trivia to add please E-mail me
