Non-decimal currencies

Categories: Currency

Today, only two countries in the world use currencies whose subdivisions are a non-decimal fraction of their main unit. These two countries are Mauritania (1 ouguiya = 5 khoum) and Madagascar (1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja).

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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 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):

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.

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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)