so was a quarter literally a coin that was cut into quarters
well yes and no mostly yes though
so I don’t know that much about American coins
whether or not the origin of the American quarter is literally because of
cutting you know coins in quarters back in the days of like gold
silver and copper coins cutting coins into bits was very common
mostly in the case of the copper coins like pennies
I imagine that cutting a gold coin into bits would be considered rude
like before one thing a gold coin is worth like quite a bit
so like whoever gets the bigger half is gonna be up quite a bit okay
so if I using um
British coinage because that’s the one that I knocked on my head
I know I’m a traitor to Australians
each gold coin which wouldn’t be terribly big by the way
would be worth 20 silver coins
and each silver coin would be worth 12 pennies or copper coin or bronze
whatever alloy all right so that’s 240 pennies to the gold coin right
but despite in absence of deliberate things like hey
pennies being half pennies
pennies being the smallest denomination
they were still a fair bit of money so we have a look here
um if you just Google um medieval value of item
uh you’ll probably get this right
so here we go two chickens or two dozen eggs is one penny but Mr Foul salesman
what if I only want one chicken
cut the coin in half
if like the guy from the song at the start of being the Beast
you need 6 egg perhaps cut your penny into quarters while I’m here
while I’m here actually a while ago
there was a guy selling like bags of cherries on the side of the road
and he got his maths wrong
he was he was selling half kilo bags for $6 and 4 kilo bags for $14
the tempt at like the the the amount that I want to go to him uh yes
excuse me sir might I buy two half kilo bags please
but I got the feeling he probably would have caught on by then and so on yeah
poor bugger so yeah
a penny was still like quite a bit for like a single item of something
if like you wanted just like a pint of beer
that’s probably gonna be like a small fraction of a penny
this is why in cases of like villages and small towns and stuff like that uh
stores and pubs and stuff like that um
extending credit was much more common than is now
to the point that the majority of people probably wouldn’t actually use coins
as often as you’d reckon apparently
there was a lot more bartering going on in like
medieval societies than you think
and one of the big parts was like coins are easier to steal than two chickens
but you know what we’re here
if like a penny is worth like two dozen eggs and how much is a gold coin worth
right keeping in mind of course that you know
things then and things now are gonna be worth like
that’s gonna be valued differently
but also I believe um
that same list had a sword being worth six pennies
that’s only 12 chickens for a sword
and I was like presumably a new like serviceable one
like not like a fancy bespoke one
but you know so let’s say that a penny is worth like 20 bucks 30 bucks
I don’t know I’m Australian so I don’t know how much you pay for eggs then like
uh 12 times that a silver coin that’s like a couple of hundred bucks
that’s a fair that’s a fair chunk of money
you don’t wanna get that stolen a gold coin then 20 times worth that
that’s a lot of money like
I would say that that’s more money than you should be carrying on your person
right so what what what we’re here up here
I believe it says a draft horse ten to 20 shillings
so up to a gold coin a draft horse like back in those days
like that’s a truck like that’s a Ute that’s that’s a tractor I mean
I don’t know how much horses cost now
but anyway
so if people wanted to buy something that was worth less than two chickens um
they may in fact just cut up the coin
but so you know
why didn’t governments mint smaller coins
they did hey
penny
that’d be worth half a penny and then if you want to buy something really small
you might even cut that up
I would also you know
make bigger coins like um
3 pence and 6 pences and stuff like that
apparently a penny cutting to eights was referred to as a bit
maybe getting that confused with the Bob
I’m pretty sure it’s a bit if a uh