· Serial numbers are not just numbers. They also use letters as part of the alphanumeric code for the 12 Federal Reserve Banks.
· The ink used for money is high tech-very high tech. It has trackable, magnetic, and birefringent (color changing) properties.
· The first U.S. cents were 100 percent copper, while today’s pennies are 95 percent zinc with a copper coating measuring only 1/2000th of an inch (as thin as cellophane tape).
· Pennies buried in a garden will repel slugs, which get electric shocks from touching copper and zinc.
· Cattle (which include sheep, camels, and other livestock) are the first and oldest form of money. Each head of cattle was called a caput, which is Latin for “head.” So, a person with a lot of cattle had lots of caput or “capital,” a word still used today to describe money.
· Throughout history, people have used many forms of money, such as soap, cocoa beans, elephant tail hairs, entire elephants, grain, animal skins, fishhooks, feathers, tea tobacco, bird claws, and bear teeth.
· It wasn’t until 1963 that the motto “In God We Trust” appeared on U.S. paper currency.
· The Romans were the first to stamp the image of a living person on a coin. After winning in war, Julius Caesar featured his portrait on a coin in 44 B.C.
· The Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) were the first people to use ingots, the first form of metal money. The value of ingots depended on their weight.
· A modern coin-counting machine can count 2,500 coins a minute. A bank note-counting machine can tally up to 100 bills in 4 seconds. It can also tell what denomination they are and if they are fake.
· There are more than 1.6 million ATMs in the world. There is even one in Antarctica. Friday is the most popular day at the ATM. The average amount withdrawn from an ATM is $80.
· The first coins with their value printed on them were minted around 600 B.C. in ancient Lydia (modern-day Turkey). The coins were made of electrum, which is an alloy of gold and silver.
· Early Romans used salt as a form of money. In fact, the word “salary” comes from sal, which means “salt” in Latin.
· The word “buck” as a reference to money dates back to days before paper when Americans traded animal and elk bucks for goods and services.
· The only woman to have ever appeared on a U.S. currency note is Martha Washington. She was on the $1 Silver Certificate in 1886 and 1891 and on the back of the $1 Silver Certificate in 1896.
· The Chinese invented paper money in the 9th century A.D. Its original name was “flying money” because it could easily blow away in the wind. However they used it just briefly. The first time paper currency was consistently used was in the 18th century by the French.
· Most of the money in the world today is fiat money, or money that is not backed by gold or other metals. The term “fiat" comes from the Latin for “let it be done.” It is money that is accepted simply because a government declares it official money.
· The United States officially adopted the dollar as its unit of currency in 1785.
· The word “cash” is from the ancient Chinese, who carried their coins in bundles on strings. A bundle of a hundred coins was called one cash. The Chinese probably got the word from the Portuguese who called their coins caixa, pronounced “cash-a.”
· There are between 7.5 billion and 9 billion $1 bills in circulation at any given time.
· The word “dollar” is from the German taler, which is an abbreviation of Joachimstaler, a town near a silver mine. The silver from the mine was used to make taler, a type of silver coin.
· Today, most money isn’t in the form of bills or coins. It is information held in computers at businesses and banks.
· Pythius, a merchant banker from Asia Minor in 5th century B.C. was the first banker on record.
· The term "check" or "cheque" is derived from the game of chess. Putting the king in check means his choices are limited, just like a modern day cheque that limits opportunities for forgery and alteration.
· There’s quite a lot of bacteria on those dollar bills. A group of researchers conducted a study in 2002 that found nearly 94% of money is contaminated. Sure, most of these bacteria won’t harm you, though seven percent of them can be hazardous to one’s health.
· Of all the currency in the world, roughly eight percent of it is actual physical money. The other 92% of money only exists digitally, which makes a lot of sense considering how often people shop online or by using a credit card.
