Gourt Home::Gourt :: Non-decimal currencies
Today, only two countries in the world use currencies which have subdivisions that are a non-decimal fraction of their main unit. These two countries are Mauritania (1 ouguiya = 5 khoum) and Madagascar (1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja).
Historic
Historically, the use of decimal subdivisions was the exception rather than the rule. Decimalised currencies show an advantage in accounting, they are less advantageous in every day life. A third of a German Gulden (of 60 Kreuzer) is 20 Kreuzer, a third of a Dollar 33.33 cents - if you need coins mostly to pay for bread, you might go for the non-decimal currency. A second topic interfered: Fundamental units like the Reichsthaler/ Rixdollar/ Riksdaler/ Rijksdaalder/ Rigsdaler were widely accepted as a medium of accounting - matching different and changing local coins in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Antwerp, or Cologne. Inflation developed locally with changing subdivisions. One thus divided the Riksdaler into 2 silver dalers in Sweden in 1700, the 1715-19 devaluation of the coin changed that ratio, the new calculation was from then onwards to 1776 a division of 1 Riksdaler matching 3 daler silvermint - most currencies mixed units of accounting and units represented by coins and thus created such shifts.
It is hence problematic to give the following list - it is a list of examples picked from different periods. Many of the subdivisions given bellow were sujected to historical changes.
The Russian ruble is often said to be the first decimalized currency, when Peter the Great established the ratio 1 ruble = 100 kopecks in 1701. The Japanese were in some sense earlier calculating with the silver momme and its decimal subunits - but then the momme was no coin at all but a unit of weight matching 3.75 g - the computations handled silver by weight. The British Pound Sterling was the last major currency to be decimalized, on February 15, 1971. An early proposal for decimalizing the pound in the 19th century envisaged a system of 1 Pound = 10 Florins = 100 Dimes = 1000 Cents. However the only step taken at that time was the introduction in 1849 of a florin coin (the earliest examples actually bore the inscription "One Tenth of a Pound").
A partial listing of former non-decimal currencies (giving only units of account):
- Ancient Greece - 1 Drachma = 6 Obols
- France - 1 Livre = 20 Sols = 240 Deniers
- German Coins
- India - 1 Rupee = 16 Annas = 64 Pice = 192 Pies . Also, 1 gold Mohur = 15 silver Rupees
- Japan - separate gold, silver, and copper currencies, but linked during the Edo period
- Gold: 1 Ryō = 4 Bu = 16 Shu
- Silver: 1 Momme = 10 Fun = 100 Rin (1 Ryō = officially 50 Momme, market rates fluctuated with supply and demand and the value of the metal minted see Japan's Currency at Marteau)
- Copper: 1 Kan = 1000 Mon (1 Ryō = 4000 Mon; hence, 1 Bu = 1 Kan)
- Netherlands - 1 Gulden = 20 Stuivers = 320 Penningen
- Ottoman Empire - 1 Kurush = 40 Para = 120 Akçe
- Poland - 1 Złoty = 30 Groschen
- Roman Empire - 1 Aureus = 25 Denarii = 100 Sestertii = 400 Asses = 1600 Quadrans
- Siam (modern-day Thailand) - 1 Tical = 4 Salung = 8 Fuang = 16 Song phai = 32 Phai = 64 Att = 128 Solot
- Spanish Empire - 1 Peso = 8 Reales (de plata fuerte) = 680 maravedíes (the pesos are the "pieces of eight" often referred to in stories about pirates, such as Treasure Island, vellon means the coin minted of an alloy with a low silver content.)
- Switzerland - 1 Gulden Rheinisch = 15 or 16 (later also 17 or 18) Batzen or = 20 Schilling; 1 Batzen = 4 Kreuzer; 1 Schilling = 6 Angster = 12 Heller
- The United Kingdom and many countries formerly part of the British Empire - 1 Pound = 20 Shillings = 240 Pence = 960 Farthings - many named coins existed (see British coinage, but these were the units of account)
See The Marteau Early 18th-Century Currency Converter for non-decimal conversion tools (using the conversion rates of the period around 1700)
Computations in non-decimal currencies are notoriously tedious. Use The English Apples into Dutch Peers-Converter to calculate with non-decimal currencies of your choice and definition.
Fictional non-decimal currencies
- Harry Potter - 1 Galleon = 17 Sickles = 493 Knuts
- Pern - Mark, no name for subdivisions, but occurs in denominations of 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 5, and 10 marks (and a few 100 marks for large transactions)
- Simon the Sorcerer 2 - 1 Royal Crest = 5 Silver Sovereigns = 25 Dollars = 50 Queen's Shillings = 100 Crowns = 400 Grouts = 6400 Pence, additionally 1 King's Shilling = 3 Crowns, and 1 Gold Sovereign = 3 Silver Sovereigns. The currency system is intentionally made inconveniently complex and only ever used at one point of the game.
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Triganic Pu, subdivided into eight Ningis. The Ningi is a "triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles a side" and hence nobody has ever owned enough Ningis to own one Pu.
See also
"Non-decimal currencies"