Money
The strange, surprising stories behind the brands in your pocket.
Money has a habit of turning ordinary objects into extraordinary stories. A card deck becomes the beginning of a gaming company. A restaurant earns its keep through property. A familiar price survives decades of change. These facts follow the businesses, inventions and everyday purchases that shaped how we spend, save and trade. Some begin in workshops, others in shops or factories, but each has a documented story behind it. Look past the brand names and the price tags, and you will find people solving practical problems, taking unusual chances and occasionally stumbling into something much bigger than they intended.
By the numbers
All money facts
McDonald's makes most of its franchise money from rent, not burgers.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 to sell handmade playing cards.
Costco's hot dog and soda combo has cost $1.50 since 1985.
Bubble Wrap was invented in 1957 as a textured wallpaper.
Play-Doh started out as a putty for cleaning soot off wallpaper.
LEGO was recognized as the world’s largest tire maker by count in 2011.
Samsung began in 1938 as a small shop selling dried fish and noodles.
The man who designed the Pringles can had his ashes buried in one.
Yap’s stone money could change owners without moving.
Paper money circulated in China centuries before European banknotes.
A split wooden stick could serve as a matching record of debt.
Some Swedish copper money weighed almost 20 kilograms.
A Swedish bank issued Europe’s first banknotes in 1661.
The world’s oldest surviving central bank was founded in Sweden.
The Bank of England began as a privately owned bank.
The United States printed a $100,000 note that was never for public spending.
America’s 1943 pennies were made from zinc-coated steel.
U.S. paper currency is made from cotton and linen.
Australia completed its switch to polymer banknotes in 1996.
Britain once divided a pound into 240 pennies.
A guinea was worth one pound and one shilling.
The word dollar traces back to a European valley.
A piece of eight was literally a coin worth eight reales.
The United States Mint was established in 1792.
The South Sea Company was created partly to manage government debt.
France’s Mississippi Bubble burst in the same year as Britain’s South Sea Bubble.
The United States stopped dollar-to-gold conversion for foreign official holders in 1971.
Forty-four Allied countries helped design the postwar monetary system in 1944.
The euro existed for three years before its notes and coins arrived.
British Premium Bonds distribute prizes instead of paying each saver interest.
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