Your Moment Of Contemplative Zen

Change You Can Believe You Can Count

The other day I got a Sacajawea coin in change. I happened to be looking at it today, checking its date -- the date is in the incuse lettering on the edge -- when I realized that the back of the coin lists the denomination as "$1". Huh.

You know, I don't believe that the $-dollar sign appears anywhere on any of the United States Federal Reserve Notes -- aka US paper currency. The word DOLLAR(S) appears spelled out. But the dollar sign? Nope.

Come to think of it, the current US coinage doesn't have the ¢-cent sign either:
ONE CENT
FIVE CENTS
ONE DIME
QUARTER DOLLAR
HALF DOLLAR
$1

I know that the €-euro sign appears on €1 and €2 coins and on € bills in Europe. And the ¥-yen sign on Japanese currency (or at least some denominations -- I've not made an exhaustive study yet). But the Sacajawea dollar coin seems to be the only US standard money which actually has one of the two symbols associated with American money.

Yup. No one's come to Office Hours yet today. How can you tell?

Dr. Phil