Money Menagerie

Money Menagerie

• If you had 10 billion $1 notes and spent one every second of every day, it would require 317 years for you to go broke.
• If each currency note printed was laid end to end, they would stretch around the earth's equator approximately 24 times. (Our present sized currency measures 2.61 inches wide by 6.14 inches long, and the thickness is .0043 inches.)
• The hands of the clock in the steeple of Independence Hall on the reverse of the $100 Federal Reserve Note are set at approximately 4:10.
• A mile of pennies laid out is $844.80. By this standard, America is about $2.5 million wide, coast to coast.
• The approximate weight of a currency note, regardless of denomination is one gram. There are 454 grams in one pound; therefore, it takes 454 notes to make one pound.
• A million $1 bills weigh 2,200 pounds.
• A $1 bill is 0.004375-inch thick. If you placed 1 million of them in a neat square, it would measure about four feet tall, four feet wide and four feet thick.
• A stack of currency one-mile high would contain more than 14 million notes.
• A stack of bills destroyed in a single year would measure 200 miles high. Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth, is a mere 19,035 feet, or slightly more than 3 miles high.
• Most people won't bend over to pick up money lying on the sidewalk unless it's at least a dollar.
• Let's flip a coin and try to guess whether it will come up heads or tails. Three times as many people guess 'heads' than 'tails'.
• 65% of Americans would live on a deserted island all by themselves for an entire year for $1,000,000.
• A person who drives 10 miles to buy a lottery ticket is 3 times more likely to be killed in a car accident while driving to buy the ticket… than… he is to win the jackpot.
• The average wedding in America costs a staggering $20,000.00.
• People tip more on sunny days than they do on dreary days.
• More than 80,000,000 people call the I.R.S. Information Hotline phone number every year. One-third of those calls go unanswered. And, according to the Treasury Department itself, 47% of the answers the 'get-through' callers receive are incorrect.
• Currency in circulation before 1929 measured 3.125 inches by 7.4218 inches. In 1929, the size was changed to its current measurement of 2.61 inches wide by 6.14 inches long.
• Did you know that a quarter has 119 grooves around the edge, and a dime has 118? Do you know the purpose of the ridges on the edges of coins? Without ridges, it is possible to scrape metal off coins without it being obvious. In the days when coins were made of silver or gold, a person could have made a good, but illegal, living from shaving coins and selling the precious metal.
• During much of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Spanish dollar coin was the unofficial national currency of the American colonies. To make change, the dollar was actually cut into eight pieces or "bits." Thus, came the terms "pieces of eight" from these early times and "two bits" (a quarter) from recent times.
• The bison on the Buffalo Nickel was from New York City. Named Black Diamond, this bison lived around the turn of the 20th century in the Central Park Zoo.
• How long do bills last? The Federal Reserve System lists the following life spans:

  $ 1 - 22 months
  $ 5 - 2 years
  $ 10 - 3 years
  $ 20 - 4 years
  $ 50 - 9 years
  $100 - 9 years
  Coins usually survive in circulation for about 30 years.

• The origin of the dollar sign — $ — has various explanations. Perhaps the most widely accepted is that it is the result of the evolution of the Mexican or Spanish "P's" for pesos. This theory, derived from a study of old manuscripts, explains that the S gradually came to be written over the P, developing a close equivalent to the $ mark. It was widely used even before the adoption of the United States dollar in 1785.

• How big is a trillion dollars? Try relating each dollar to one second.

  A million seconds = just under 12 years.
  A billion seconds = about 32 years.
  A trillion seconds = 32,000 years.

The History of Money

• Cattle are probably the oldest of all forms of money. Cattle as money dates back to 9000 B.C. Some cattle were still used as money in parts of Africa in the middle of the 20th century.
• The first coins, pieces of bronze shaped like cattle, appeared around 2000 B.C. Their value was determined by their weight, making their use cumbersome.
• Coins with their value imprinted on them were first produced in Lydia (present day Turkey) around 650 B.C. Around A.D. 806, the Chinese invented and briefly used paper currency, but the first consistent use of paper money was by the French in the 18th century.
• The Massachusetts Bay Colony issued the first paper money in America in 1690. The colonies would later form the United States.
• On April 2, 1792, Congress created the U. S. Mint. A month later, land was purchased for its construction in Philadelphia, which was then the nation's capital.
• The U.S. Mint produced its first circulating coins — 11,178 copper cents — in March 1793. Soon after, the mint began issuing gold and silver coins.
• Before the days of paper money, Americans traded animal skins, including deer and elk bucks, for goods and services. Hence the word "buck" to describe money.
• American Indians used to carry around strings of clamshells to use as money, which they called wampum. Wampum was the most common form of money in North America. By 1637, the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared wampum legal tender, which meant it could be used as money.
• What happens if your money gets trashed? The Office of Currency Standards will replace it if you can present to officials 51 percent of the note. If your cash has been burned, torn or otherwise destroyed, they will help you verify and replace that money. The office once received a shotgun in which a man had hidden some money, but forgot and fired the gun. In another case, a farmer sent his cow's stomach stuffed with money.
• In 1916, you could get your money laundered for free! If your money was in good enough shape, you could take it to Washington, D.C., where it could be washed, ironed and reissued.
• Parker Brothers printed more money for its Monopoly games than the Federal Reserve has issued in real money for the United States. If you stacked up all the Monopoly sets made, the pile would be more than 1,100 miles high.

Funny Money

• Before the days of paper money, Americans traded animal skins, including deer and elk bucks, for goods and services. Hence the word "buck" to describe money.
• American Indians used to carry around strings of clamshells to use as money, which they called wampum. Wampum was the most common form of money in North America. By 1637, the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared wampum legal tender, which meant it could be used as money.
• What happens if your money gets trashed? The Office of Currency Standards will replace it if you can present to officials 51 percent of the note. If your cash has been burned, torn or otherwise destroyed, they will help you verify and replace that money. The office once received a shotgun in which a man had hidden some money, but forgot and fired the gun. In another case, a farmer sent his cow's stomach stuffed with money.
• In 1916, you could get your money laundered for free! If your money was in good enough shape, you could take it to Washington, D.C., where it could be washed, ironed and reissued.
• Parker Brothers printed more money for its Monopoly games than the Federal Reserve has issued in real money for the United States. If you stacked up all the Monopoly sets made, the pile would be more than 1,100 miles high.

The Art of Money

• The pyramid you see on the back of your currency is actually the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States. The pyramid represents strength and permanence and has been left unfinished to signify the future growth of the country.
• Contrary to popular belief, the automobile pictured on the back of the $10 note is not a Model T Ford. It is a drawing by the person who designed the bill. The vignette on the back of the $100 note is Independence Hall in Philadelphia. There are three people depicted in the engraving. A man and a woman are in front of the hall close to the building; the third person is a man pictured looking toward the building.
• The hands of the clock on the back of the $100 bill are set at approximately 4:10. Although the time is not readily identifiable to the naked eye, it can be seen when examined with 20-fold magnification. There are no records explaining why that particular time was chosen.
• During the Civil War, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was called upon to print paper notes in denominations of 3 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents and 50 cents. The reason for this is that people hoarded coins, which created a drastic shortage. These bills, called greenbacks, were used to pay Civil War soldiers.
• Martha Washington is the only woman whose portrait has appeared on a U.S. currency note. It appeared on the face of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1886 and 1891, and the back of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1896. There have not been any women featured on U.S. paper currency in the entire 20th century.

Notable Quotes About Money

• "Remember that time is money." Ben Franklin
• "He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing." Ben Franklin
• "These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd!" Alexander Pope
• "A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill!" Waldo Emerson
• "A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone." Benjamin Franklin
• "Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place." Alexander Pope
• "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." Charles Dickens
• "If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area of his life." Billy Graham
• "The money you intend to save draws no interest." Anonymous
• "Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul." Henry David Thoreau
• "We are not to judge thrift solely by the test of saving or spending. If one spends what he should prudently save, that certainly is to be deplored. But if one saves what he should prudently spend, that is not necessarily to be commended. A wise balance between the two is the desired end." Owen D. Young
• "All that we can hold in our dead hands is what we have given away." Sanskrit Proverb
• "A purse is doubly empty when it is full of borrowed money." Anonymous
• "If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. We are bought by the enemy with the treasure in our own coffers." Edmund Burke
• "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." Albert Einstein
• "Fools can make money. It takes a wise man to tell how to spend it." English Proverb
• "To live with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury . . . to be worthy. . . wealthy, not rich. . . . This is to be my symphony." William Henry Channing
• "Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust." Oliver Wendell Holmes
• "I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man." George Washington
• "Our economy is based upon people wanting more -- their happiness on wanting less." Frank A. Clark
• "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of." Benjamin Franklin
• "They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles." Benjamin Franklin
• "Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith." Benjamin Franklin
• "Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin
• "There are two systems of taxation in our country: one for the informed and one for the uninformed." Honorable Learned Hand, US Appeals Court Justice
• "Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." John Quincy Adams
• "The taxpayer -- that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." Ronald Reagan
• "Every man ought to have money on his mind. No man ought to have money on his heart." Unknown
• "If you can't pay as you go, you're going too fast." Unknown
• "More people should learn to tell their dollars where to go instead of asking where they went." Unknown
• "You should have two financial goals in life: to make a little money first, and then to make a little money last." Unknown
• "When a person with experience meets a person with money, the person with experience will get the money. And the person with the money will get some experience." Unknown
• "How to handle money: use common sense. The simplest choices are often the best ones. Impulse is your enemy, time your friend." Unknown