DID YOU KNOW

Over the years, Americans have made up "nicknames" for money.

The trading of buckskin furs in colonial times created the name "buck" for a dollar.

Soldiers during the Civil War called them "greenbacks" for the color of the ink on the back of bills.

A five-dollar bill is sometimes called "a fin." "Finf" is the Yiddish word for five.

Another name for a ten-dollar bill is "sawbuck." This name comes from the wooden legs of a sawhorse which form an X and X is the Roman numeral for ten. A "double sawbuck" is a twenty-dollar bill.

A $100 bill is a "C-note." "C" is short for "century," meaning 100.

Starting in the 1920s and 1930s, money was nicknamed for what it could buy. It was called "bread" or "dough." One name for counterfeit money was "sourdough."

In Roman times, soldiers were often paid with salt. The Roman people spoke Latin. Our word "salary" comes from the Latin word for salt, "solarium."

The first truly American coin design, the buffalo nickel, was only produced for 25 years-from 1913 to 1938.

A U.S. dollar bill is just about 6 inches long. So when you have one in your pocket, you have a "measuring" tape.

Until 1929, U.S. paper dollar bills measured 7 ½ inches by 3 inches. The size was changed to 6 inches by 2 ½ inches to make it easier to print and handle.

Because coin money was hard to find in colonial times, colonial Americans used the Native American system for money called "wampum." Wampum was a string of white shells. A foot-long string of the white shells was worth about 12 cents. To make change, a merchant would break the string and count out each shell. Today, the saying, "shelling out," still means to pay for something.

In colonial times, a silver dollar coin was a lot of money. To make change, the coin would be broken into eight equal pieces called "bits." Two bits became the slang term for a quarter.

It takes 40 tons of pressure-the weight of about 10 elephants-to stamp the design on a penny.