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Current low denomination coins

ajaanajaan Posts: 17,076 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited July 20, 2022 7:07AM in World & Ancient Coins Forum

Sitting here in Chiangmai, Thailand looking through my change I see a new 25 satang coin which is 1/4 of a baht. A baht is worth 2.7 cents.

This got me wondering what other currently circulating coins have very low value in US cents. Anyone have any?


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Comments

  • SapyxSapyx Posts: 1,977 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Part of the problem is determining exactly what is meant by "currently circulating".

    There are countries that issue "circulation" coins, but either are not intended for general use, or are intended but people refuse to use them due to their tiny value. Thailand is an excellent example; Thailand still issues 1, 5 and 10 satang coins, to the banks, but the banks refuse to issue them to the public, even if you go in and ask for some. In a country where inter-bank transactions are still facilitated by physical cash, these tiny coins are used in inter-bank transfers to round off deposits and interest payments to the nearest satang.

    There are countries where low-denomination coins are still found in circulation, but they've effectively stopped making them. In Moldova, for example, you could still get 1 ban = 0.051 cents coins in change in 2019; I was given a couple when some friends visited there just before COVID hit; but they'd stopped minting them in 2017.

    The Nigerian 1 naira coin is theoretically valued at about a quarter of a cent, but the actual on-the-ground cash economy in Nigeria is coin-less; if any naira coins managed to escape, they would quickly be melted down by scrappers as there's far more than 1 naira's worth of metal in them.

    Poland is still issuing 1 grosz coins and you can find them in change, if you're persistent; they're also worth about 1/4 of a cent.

    These are exceptions. As a general rule coins worth about half a US cent are the smallest still being minted and used.

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  • ajaanajaan Posts: 17,076 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 19, 2022 2:04AM

    By currently circulating I mean used in everyday street commerce. I never remember seeing 1 and 2 satang coins when I lived in Thailand from 1984-89.


    DPOTD-3
    'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'

    CU #3245 B.N.A. #428


    Don
  • SapyxSapyx Posts: 1,977 ✭✭✭✭✭

    For actual common, everyday use, you're unlikely to find anything worth less than half a US cent; even in poor countries, coins smaller than that simply aren't worth the trouble of anybody finding and using.

    I did a study on this question a year or so ago. I began with the assumption that it would be the poorer, less-developed, mostly-agricultural economies in Africa and the Pacific that would still have extra-small denominations in regular use, since these are places where conditions seemed optimal for small-value coins to circulate: the economy is still largely cash-based, wages are low, prices for basic goods and services are cheap, and the tropical conditions mean that low-denomination banknotes would crumble into pulp within weeks of heavy circulation.

    But I found this generally isn't the case. The smallest face value coin in the Pacific, the French Pacific 1 franc, is worth just under 1 US cent. For the most stable currency in sub-Saharan Africa, the South African rand, their smallest coin is the 10 cent piece, worth just over half a US cent. And most of Africa is effectively coin-less, as war and corruption have usually meant high inflation and subsequent devolution of the cash economy to paper only, despite the drawbacks of using paper money in tropical climates. Ghana is another notable exception; the 1 pesewa coin introduced in 2007 is worth 1/8th of a US cent, and apparently still circulates to a small degree; the more widely used next-smallest coin in Ghana is 5 pesewas (about 0.6 US cents).

    The place to go for the smallest, most worthless coins in common usage is Eastern Europe, the former communist satellite states still struggling (and mostly failing) to bring their economies up to Eurozone standards. Moldova is the worst, but Poland, Bulgaria and Ukraine are all honourable(?) mentions here too.

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