Two bits
My grandfather always called a quarter, 'two bits'; well, they used to actually chop up Spanish 'Piece of Eight' into bits. Two bits would be 25% or about 25 cents.
My grandfather always called a quarter, 'two bits'; well, they used to actually chop up Spanish 'Piece of Eight' into bits. Two bits would be 25% or about 25 cents.
“My grandfather always called a quarter”
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Your grandfather? You must be a young pap!
The idea of ‘bits’ came from the time when coins were actually worth something, not because of what was stamped on them but because what they were made from, in the case of the Spanish dollar, silver.
The stamping added value only in the sense that it was the government’s guarantee of the amount and purity of the silver, but the value of the coin actually was in its silver. Hard to believe today, but it disappeared in the US in 1965.
Small change was rare, so to make it, the dollar could be cut into halves, quarters, and eighths.
The US dollar was modeled after the Spanish Milled Dollar as minted in Mexico City from a time when Mexico was a far wealthier nation/colony than the US.
Mythbusters succeeded in getting eight folds in a piece of paper, but they started with a piece of paper larger than a football field. It was, shall we say, difficult to do.