Denomination (currency)

When dealing with money, denomination is the value of the individual currency. 

For example a one dollar bill, a 100 dollar bill, a penny and a quarter are all different denominations of money. A one dollar bill and a one dollar coin are the same denomination as they are the same value.

Monetary union
When countries form a monetary union, redenomination may be required and the conversion ratio is often not a nice even number, or even less than 1.
 New unit  =  x  Old unit  year  Monetary union Austro-Hungarian krone = 0.5 gulden/forint 1892 Latin Monetary Union euro = 0.787564 Irish pound 1999/2002 Eurozone euro = 40.3399 Luxembourgish francs 1999/2002 EurozoneThis table is not exhaustive.

Decimalisation
When countries that had a "pound (£) - shilling (s) - pence (d)" (£sd) currency system converted to a system which had pounds (£) and pennies (p) or dollars ($) and cents (¢) it was called decimalisation. In the £sd system, £1 = 20s and 1s = 12d, so £1 = 240d. However in the new systems £1 = 100p or $1 = 100¢ or 100c - a decimal-based system, hence the word "decimalised".

 Country  New unit  =  x  Old unit  =  New minor unit  year Australia Australian dollar = 0.5 Australian pound = 100¢ 1966 Ireland Irish pound = 1.0 Irish pound = 100p 1971 New Zealand New Zealand dollar = 0.5 New Zealand pound = 100¢ 1967 South Africa  South African rand = 0.5 South African pound = 100c 1961 United Kingdom British pound = 1.0 British pound = 100p 1971This table is not exhaustive.

Related pages
 Inflation

Category:Currency