Currency names: last man standing

[<k>]

Some currency names (of both units and sub-units) are well known and have been used by several countries: the dollar, the cent, the rupee, etc. No doubt some well known names are no longer used anywhere in the world. However, I want to find out which names used by existing currencies are the last man standing. This naturally excludes names that have only ever been used by one country, e.g. the kwanza of Angola.

[<k>]

Exhibit number one: the florin, once world renowned, but now found only in tiny Aruba. Please give generously to help save this endangered currency name from extinction.

[<k>]

The only guilder still extant is the Netherlands Antilles guilder - and the Netherlands Antilles no longer even exists! It was dissolved into its constituent parts on 10 October 2010, some of which opted to become Dutch municipalities. Curaçao and Sint Maarten became constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and they still use the Netherlands Antilles guilder. This will eventually be replaced by the Caribbean guilder, at a rate of one to one, but the creation of that new currency and coinage has been put on hold for the time being.

[<k>]

Can anybody think of any more?

[andyg]

Lira ?

[<k>]

The lira is problematic, because it can also be translated as pound. So do we refer to the Syrian lira, livre, pound - or what? Wikipedia says it is currently used in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

[<k>]

The escudo, historically used in Spain, Portugal and in their colonies around the world, is now found only in little Cape Verde. Apparently that country would like to use the euro, can you believe, so who knows, perhaps the escudo will become extinct within the next few years.

[chrisild]

Bosnia & Herzegovina. They use a currency named "Konvertibilna Marka"; the small unit is called "Fening". Sounds familiar?

Christian

[<k>]

Bosnia & Herzegovina. They use a currency named "Konvertibilna Marka"; the small unit is called "Fening". Sounds familiar?

Christian

Both sound familiar. The German Mark and the Estonian and Finnish Marka/Markka are now defunct. The Fening sounds like Pfennig, but etymologically both are related to the penny, and plenty of those still exist. So, yes, the Marka is the last man standing. 

[Figleaf]

I would argue that the Hungarian Forint is a Florin too. Is Andorra a peseta user or is it now a euro country?

The last surviving lira may be Turkish, unless you consider pound as the British way to pronounce lira.

If you would argue that guilder is the same as gulden, Surinam still has a gulden as well as plans for a dollar.

Is anyone still using öre, øre, ortchen or oorden?

The Armenian Dram may be the last of the drachmes. Bosnia keeps the Mark/markkaa alive.

I thought the Cambodian riel was the last real until I remembered the Yemeni, Qatari, Omani and Iranian rial. The Israeli shekel, then?

Do Georgians realise they are the last users of the lari, once a silver Persian coin?

I can't think of any other users of the Dobra (once a Portuguese gold coin) than Sao Tomé & Principe. Cap Verde still uses the escudo.

Peter

[chrisild]

Andorra basically uses what its neighbors use. That was the French franc and the Spanish peseta - and once those were replaced by the euro, Andorra switched over too. (First by simply using the money, now with a monetary agreement.) For collectors only, they also have diner/s and centim/s ("diner" is Catalan and means "money").

As for öre/øre, as far as I know, only Denmark still has such a coin (the 50 øre piece, worth about 7 cent). The others have done away with them.

Christian

[FosseWay]

As to öre (at least in the Swedish context; I imagine the same is true in Denmark, Norway and the Faeroes, but not Iceland), it depends on how you define 'use'. The öre is alive and well in Sweden, it's just that there are no coins carrying öre denominations any more. Prices are given to the nearest öre when you buy by weight or volume (e.g. fruit and veg in a shop, or petrol etc.) and you pay the precise amount if you pay by card or electronic bank transfer. Electricity prices are generally quoted in öre/kWh. Crucially, perhaps, people refer to the fractions of kronor on bills as öre, not as a decimal fraction of a krona. So 10,75 kr would be spoken as 'tio kronor och sjuttiofem öre' not 'tio comma sjuttiofem kronor'.

The Nordic exception is Iceland, where the króna is worth significantly less than its mainland cousins. There by law all invoices must be presented in whole krónur, and there are no aurar in use electronically or otherwise.

[chrisild]

Yes, I did think about the öre/øre in terms of coins. While I know that non-cash payments still deal with such amounts, the little round thingies are "almost dead" ... and it will be interesting to see how long the last man minted , the Danish 50 øre, will stay around. Interesting that in SE the word öre is so common - when it comes to amounts, in Germany 10,75 for example would be "zehn Euro fünfundsiebzig" or simply "zehn fünfundsiebzig", but hardly ever "zehn Euro und fünfundsiebzig Cent".

The (e)scudo is still around in Europa, to an extremely limited extent though: Both San Marino and the Order of Malta (SMOM) issue scudo (pl. scudi) pieces ...and sell them to collectors. That is about their only purpose these days.

Christian

[FosseWay]

Yes, in common speech where the context is clear, you'd leave out the units (kronor as well) and in practice such an amount would never be said e.g. at a checkout. IME if the total is 10,75 kr the kassörska will say "elva kronor". You would, as a difference from English or German, always use the "och" (and) between the two numbers. The same is true with (numerical) times, as printed on timetables: in English we say "the train goes at thirteen fifteen" but in Swedish it is always "tåget går klockan tretton och femton".

The other common use of öre is in prices per minute or per SMS on phone adverts.

[<k>]

Is Andorra a peseta user or is it now a euro country?

According to Wikipedia, the Sahrawi Peseta is the de facto currency of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. I think that is a misuse of "de facto", because it is only their currency in theory, since Morocco is the real power in that territory, and I don't see this ever changing.