This column was originally published in The Hamilton County Herald on Oct. 11, 2013.
I was bored with what was on TV the other day, so I tuned into the Home Shopping Network. The man on the tube was selling coins of all kinds at cheap prices. My husband is a numismatic, so I knew most of what he was selling was not what he was making it seem. However, he did give me the idea to do this trivia puzzle on coins. Test your knowledge on our currency!
1. Which coin is the most expensive coin to mint? Penny; nickel; dime; quarter.
2. The Federal Reserve shreds 7,000 tons of worn-out currency each year, with the one-dollar bill being the most shredded. What’s the life expectancy of the one-dollar bill? Twelve months; 18 months; 24 months; 36 months.
3. What’s the largest denomination of currency ever printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing? A $1,000 note; a $5,000 note; a $10,000 note; a $100,000 note.
4. Approximately what’s the worth of coins circulating in the U.S. today? $3 billion; $5 billion; $7 billion; $8 billion.
5. What two pictures are hidden in the one-dollar bill? A lion and a bear; an elephant and a donkey; an owl and a spider; a soldier on horseback and a sword.
6. True or false: When the Sacajawea dollar coin and the Susan B. Anthony coin were first issued, a half billion of each one were minted.
7. What’s the most collected coin in the United States? The Sacajawea dollar coin; the Lincoln cent; the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin; the Indian Head nickel.
8. True or false: You can fold a piece of US currency forward then backward about 4,000 times before it will tear.
9. What’s special about some of the 1955 Wheat pennies? There were only 100 made; they have a doubled-die obverse; they were the cents made mostly of zinc; there’s nothing special about them.
10. What was the name of the one cent coin that was actually the first United States coin to be called a nickel? Indian Head cent; Flying Eagle cent; Phoenix cent; Liberty cent.
ANSWERS
1. The quarter. 2. Eighteen months. Bills of larger denominations stick around longer since they’re handled less than the one-dollar bill. The life expectancy for the five-dollar bill is two years, for the 10-dollar bill is three years, and for the 20-dollar bill is four years. The 50- and 100-dollar bills have a life expectancy of nine years. 3. The largest note ever printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was the $100,000 Gold Certificate Series 1934. These notes were printed from December 1934 through January 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. These notes were used for transactions between FRBs and were not circulated among the general public. 4. Eight billion dollars. The U.S. Mint produces nearly 30 billion coins for general circulation each year. 5. The American one dollar bill contains an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the “1” encased in the “shield” and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner. 6. False. When the Sacajawea dollar coin was launched in 2000, a half billion coins were issued within 14 weeks of the first ones rolling off the mint presses. It took the Susan B. Anthony dollar 14 years to reach that much circulation. 7. The most collected coin is probably the United States Lincoln cent. Minted in tremendous numbers from 1909 to the present, they’re inexpensive and widely available with the exception of a few rare dates. 8. True. 9. They have a doubled-die obverse. Doubled-die coins are not a regular issue but caused from an error at the mint. 10. The Flying Eagle cent, minted from 1856 to 1858, had a composition of 88 percent copper and 12 percent nickel.