ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area (OT) New US Nickels in 2004

About the Louisiana Purchase, heard a story (which may or may not be accurate) about Napoliean needing some cash to fund his military. And that the USA was a bit uneasy having to ship its inland farm products thru a foriegn port (New Orelands). So we offer $10 million for New Orelands, and Napolien says "Make it 15, and I'll throw in all that land behind it". He knew that he wouldn't be able to control the Louisiana Purchase land much longer anyway, so might as well sell it before he loses it. He was busy fighting with his European neighbor countries, and needed some quick cash for his armies.

I bet the Russians during the cold war regretted having sold us Alaska earlier....

As for coins with center holes, some Japanese coins are like that. Was over there some years ago on a job with a major TV manufacturer. We were assembling a laboratory prototype TV set, and I needed some washers. So I reached into my pocket and pulled some of those coins and used them as washers. Bad move, the Japanese guys didn't like that at all..... Like the time I went and turned the office thermostat down a few degrees. It was winter, and everyone was sweating their asses off. Arrgggg... Seems something like that should go to a Senate subcommittee meeting, etc. I just went and did it. I thought it too obvious and trivial to waste the boss's time on....

The British £2 coin (introduced quite recently) is such a design, as is the new 2 Euro coin, and the old French 10 franc.


Many Brits on their first exposure to U.S. money seem to find it odd that all bills are the same size and color. (British notes at present are £5: Blue/green, £10 Orange/brown, £20 purple, etc.)

I find the style of U.S. banknotes to be reassuringly traditional. They actually look and feel like "real money."

I remember hearing something about pink $20 bills soon to come out though. I found it really weird when I saw US$ bills for the first time. Back then we had our good old Schilling currency, and the bills were like this: ATS 20 some kind of brown, ATS 50 a dark purple, ATS 100 green, ATS 500 arather light orange-brown, ATS 1000 blue (Common saying: "How much is that?" "Helluva expensive. Five blues!". Another name for the ATS 1000 bills was "rag", or (rare) a "Schroedinger" (the guy who was on the back of the bill)) and ATS 5000 brown again. 5000 Schilling bills weren't too common and were always referred to as "Mozarts". Size was different too, increasing with the value.

I remember when the Canadian $2 coin first came out there were all sorts of stories in the news about people trying to force the center section of the coin out.