Coins made from gold and silver were used in Lydia, an ancient Middle Eastern kingdom, in about 687-652 BC. The coins were known as staters.



Largest coins

Swedish 10-daler copper coins (made in 1644) weighed 19.71km.

Smallest coins

The silver quarter-jawa was made in Nepal in about 1740 and weighed only 0.002g. You would need half a million of them to equal a kilogram.

Most coins made

The US Mint makes more than 12 billion coins every year. Almost 7 billion of them are 1-cent coins. There are nearly 25 billion UK coins in circulation, worth a total of over 3 billion.

Banknotes

Paper money was first made in China in the 13th century. The first European notes were made in Sweden in 1548. Banknotes were issued in America in 1690 and in England in 1695.

Largest banknotes

One-guan Chinese notes from the late 14th century measured 22.8. 33cm ? bigger than a page of this book.

Smallest banknotes

Romanian 10-bani notes of 1917 had a printed area of just 27.5 . 38mm, which is not much bigger than a postage stamp.

Cheques

The first cheque was issued in London on 22 April 1659. It was for E 10 and made payable to the bearer by Nicholas Vanacker. It was drawn on the bank of Clayton & Morris. The original cheque was sold for E 1,300 at Sotheby's, London in 1976.

Credit cards

The first credit card was invented by Frank X. McNamara in the USA and issued in 1950 by Diner's Club. Holograms were first used for security on Visa cards in the US in 1984. Smart cards (cards with built-in microchips) were introduced in France in 1975. There are about 120 million credit and debit cards in the UK, about four for each adult.

Travellers? Cheques

American Express in the USA issued the first as early as 1891.

ATM

The world's first ATM (Automated Teller Machine, or cashpoint) began operation on 27 June 1967 at Barclays Bank, Enfield, London.

Euro

The new European currency was introduced in 1999 and was taken up by most European Union countries on 1 January 2002.

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