Currency Symbols on Coins

[SquareEarth]

฿ ₵ ₫ € ₲ ₴ n ₭  £ ₦ ₱ ₹ ৳ ₪ ₸ ₮ ₩ ¥ $

Anything that is not a letter.

Malaysia $1 1991
One Ringgit

[SquareEarth]

I always believed that coins should spell the word out (Pound, Dollar, Kwancha, Ringgit, etc), for the sake of formality, or at least they should use abbreviations (ct, c, d, p, etc), and currency symbols kind of ruin the beauty of coins.

But one of our own member seems to hold a different view.


Since I cannot burn him at stake for such heresy , I've decided to create a this topic.

[SquareEarth]

Irish 1 Punt, 1990, with a £ sign.
The British would never do that.

[Figleaf]

The Dutch gulden symbol ƒ was not used on a Dutch coin. I seem to remember that it was used on a "colonial" pseudo-issue, but can't find it.

On your premise that coins should have a denomination on them: this is a recently acquired insight, stimulated by the French revolution, decimalization and the reducing lathe. A large majority of coins don't have any indication of value. Some large group examples: cast cash (except the multiple cash), Greek and Roman coins.

Peter

[chrisild]

Irish 1 Punt, 1990, with a £ sign.
The British would never do that.

Could also be a way of combining two languages: The name of the currency unit, spelled out in Irish, is "punt" while "£" can be read as the English "pound" too.

When the final designs for the common sides of the euro coins were presented, I found it surprising that the "€" had not made it so to say: On the euro notes it is used, but not on the circulation coins. May have something to do with the currency name being new ten to fifteen years ago. The € does show on some commemorative and collector coins though.

The $ sign is also used on Mexican peso coins (see below; images from the central bank). Interestingly, they seem to do it the other way round - as far as I can tell (have not checked all current denominations) the paper money says "pesos" as a word only.

 

The US and Canadian dollar coins and notes do not use the $ symbol either, I think. The only exception that I know of, in today's money, is the US $1 coins of the Presidential and Native American series ...

Christian

[chrisild]

The Portuguese pre-euro coins had a "$" symbol, the cifrão, which was always written with two vertical lines. It was also used as a decimal separator, as on this (image: Wikipedia) 2.50 escudo coin:



Christian

[<k>]

The short-lived Austral was used by Argentina from 1985 to 1992.

[chrisild]

Between 1972 and 1982, Malta used the "Maltese Pound", with "£M" as the symbol, on its coins. When the pound was replaced by the lira - which was not really a currency reform but a language change - , they used (between 1983 and 2007) the "Lm".  In Cyprus the £ was used on coins between 1976 (first £1 coin) and 2007. No images right now ...

Christian

[andyg]

UK...

I think the only time the '£' sign has been used on a circulation coin. (five pounds don't count!)

[<k>]

Since 1985 the reverse of the Guernsey pound coin shows a detail from the pound note - but it also spells out the denomination in words. So really it's just a picture of a pound sign. Does that count? It depends on your point of view.

[<k>]

The Jersey 2 pound coin includes a latent image with the pound sign.

 

[SquareEarth]

When the final designs for the common sides of the euro coins were presented, I found it surprising that the "€" had not made it so to say: On the euro notes it is used, but not on the circulation coins. May have something to do with the currency name being new ten to fifteen years ago. The € does show on some commemorative and collector coins though.

€2.00 (English)
 or
2.00€ (French)
or
2€00? (Portuguese)

It's hard to be neutral.

The $ sign is also used on Mexican peso coins (see below; images from the central bank). Interestingly, they seem to do it the other way round - as far as I can tell (have not checked all current denominations) the paper money says "pesos" as a word only.

Actually, Yen, Yuan, Won, Tugrik, Ringgit, Peso, and Dollar can all use $ as its symbol, since they are all ultimately derived from the Spanish Dollar

But Mexicans deserve the $ sign the most, because the Spanish dollar was minted with Mexican silver.

Speaking of Mexican Silver...
My favourite modern circulation coins, because they have SILVER in them.

[chrisild]

It's hard to be neutral.

Right. My surprise "back then" was mostly about the symbol not showing up on the coins at all, not even as some kind of logo in a corner. Adding it now would be odd. But Portuguese collector coins, for example, usually say "2,50€" or "2,5€" if the symbol is used instead of the word. Cyprus and Estonia use the "€10" variety, Finland and the Netherlands write "10€". But those are rare cases if you look at the "overall volume" - usually the word EURO is used.

The currencies of Azerbaijan (manat) and Kazakhstan (tenge) have symbols too, but I don't think they are used on coins ...

Christian

[<k>]

Brazil, 5 cruzeiros reais, 1993.  An example of the short-lived cruzeiro real.  When you have so many dollar signs (which are historically actually peso signs), you have to add some letters to make a distinction: CR$ .
 
 

[<k>]

SquareEarth, the image you posted here, and paisepagal, the one you posted here, are not coins but illustrations of what you might one day like to see. That is fine in itself, but could you please post a real Indian coin (with the new rupee symbol) next to your illustrations, so that we can compare and contrast?

Moving to Japan, do any circulation or collector coins show the yen sign? I can't find any, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

"You need a yen,
To make a mark,
If you wanna make
MONEY!"