How they work : “The USA Dollar Denominations”

Much as we always talk about this or that form of technology, in this edition, I decided to feature on another yet important topic, the US Dollar! This is sometimes abbreviated as US$ or USD and it is the official monetary currency of the Unites States of America (USA). This currency has a long history of circulation. is the currency most used in international transactions and is the world’s reserve currency. Several countries use it as their official currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency, and is also used as the sole currency in some British Overseas Territories. The word “dollar” is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. In that context, “dollars” is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U.S. Congress adopted legislation titled An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States. Section 9 of that act authorized the production of various coins, including “DOLLARS OR UNITS—each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver”. Section 20 of the act provided, “That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units... and that all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation”. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States. The first dollar coins issued by the United States Mint (founded 1792) were similar in size and composition to the Spanish dollar. The Spanish, U.S. silver dollars, and Mexican silver pesos circulated side by side in the United States, and the Spanish dollar and Mexican peso remained legal tender until 1857. The coinage of various English colonies also circulated. The lion dollar was popular in the Dutch New Netherland Colony (New York), but the lion dollar also circulated throughout the English colonies during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Examples circulating in the colonies were usually worn so that the design was not fully distinguishable, thus they were sometimes referred to as “dog dollars”. The present denominations of our currency in circulations are $1, $2, 5$, $10, $20, $50 and $100. The purpose of the United States currency system is to serve the needs of the public and these denominations meet that goal. In July 1969, David M. Kennedy, the 60th Secretary of the Treasury, and officials at the Federal Reserve Board stopped the distributing currency in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000. Production of these denominations stopped during World War II. Their main purpose was for bank transfer payments. The largest denomination of currency ever printed by was the $100,000 Series. These notes were printed from December 18, 1934 through January 9, 1935 and were issued by the Treasurer of the United States to Federal Reserve Banks only against an equal amount of gold bullion held by the Treasury Department. The notes were used only for official transactions between Federal Reserve Banks and were not circulated among the general public. Much as the $1, 000 - $100,000 notes are legal tender and may still be found in circulation today, the Federal Reserve Banks remove them from circulation and destroy them as they are received. eddie@afrowebs.com