Unusual Denominations
Weiss
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Came across a set today I hadn't seen before: 1973 Cook Islands Proof Coinage (struck at the Royal Australian Mint)
KM#9 & KM#10
KM#10 is denominated at $7.50 (1.0052 troy ounces of .925 silver)
KM#9 is $2.50 (.8134 troy ounces of .925 silver)
Makes for an even $10 for the 2-piece set. These are part of the same Mad Marty "weenie" dollars that became popular on PCGS in years gone by.
Got any other examples of coins that seem to be odd denomination for no real reason?
We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame
--Severian the Lame
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Here's an unusual one ... a 1615 Schaumburg-Pinneberg 1/18.5 Thaler.
PCGS incorrectly identifies this as 1/16 Thaler, but the denomination "18 1/2" is clearly visible in the orb on the eagle's chest.
My World Coin Type Set
Making change in 1615 was difficult.
Can you make change for a yap? Peace Roy
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Making change in 1615 was difficult.
Not if everyone stuck to evenly dividing the Thaler. Here's a couple of 1615 1/24 Thalers, one from Gottingen
and one from Hildesheim
My World Coin Type Set
And, back to unusual denominations, how about an 1874 Columbia 1 1/4 Centavos ...
I guess the desire was to divide 5 Centavos into 4, but why have fractional Centavos?
My World Coin Type Set
@PBRat No, that 1.25 cents was harking back to the "bits" system - ten of them equaled 1 bit. Eighty of them equaled the dollar sized coin.
I can't say this with certainty, but I'd speculate that it may have been an attempt to decimalize the bit system.
Here is a 1/32 Birr from Ethiopia:
Ethiopia 1/32 Birr EE 1889 (AD 1897)
Copper, 20 mm, 2.94 gm
Obverse: Emperor Menelik II (AD 1889-1913)
Reverse: Lion of Judah
An Ethiopian Birr or Talari was the equivalent of the silver Maria Theresa Thaler.
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
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So that's where " I don't give two bits for... " came from. Very interesting coinage.
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It's strange that this thread showed up/started up here on this forum today. Over on CCF, there was an old wonderful thread revived that fits right in here, although most are not cert'd:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/coins-with-fractional-and-mixed-number-denominations.343184/page-4#post-3771136