Currency
The AM$ (Ankh-Morpork dollar) is equal to 100 pennies (pence). Under Ankh-Morporkian tradition, ten pence can be referred to as a shilling, twenty-five pence as half a ton, and fifty pence as a nob/a ton/half a bar/a knocker.
The AM$ is reputedly the hardest currency outside of the Agatean Empire. A dollar coin is Sequin (coin) sized, and although theoretically made of gold the metal has been adulterated so many times that, according to The Discworld Companion:
"There is more gold in an equivalent weight of seawater. In a sense, then, Ankh-Morpork is on the gold standard in all respects except the one of actually having any gold to speak of"
Ankh-Morpork being an extremely rich city state, the AM$ is the currency of choice amongst the lands around the Circle Sea; although other city states have their own currencies they maintain strong links with the dollar, as Ankh-Morpork is the only place which has anything worth buying.
In Making Money, Moist von Lipwig introduces paper currency and puts the city on the golem standard.
Read more about this topic: Ankh-Morpork
Famous quotes containing the word currency:
“Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are cheques drawn on insufficient funds.”
—René Daumal (1908–1944)