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Message:: [QUOTE="The Eidolon, post: 4508977, member: 102103"]Stumbled across this quote while trying to research something else (the Danish West Indian "bit"), and though it was kind of fun to see a contemporaneous account of making change between the former Mexican 8 real and US 100 cent systems: "In the Pacific States they have made a bolder push for complexity, and settle their affairs by a coin that no longer exists – the bit, or old Mexican real. The supposed value of the bit is twelve and a half cents, eight to the dollar. When it comes to two bits, the quarter-dollar stands for the required amount. But how about an odd bit? The nearest coin to it is a dime, which is, short by a fifth. That, then, is called a short bit. If you have one, you lay it triumphantly down, and save two and a half cents. But if you have not, and lay down a quarter, the bar-keeper or shopman calmly tenders you a dime by way of change; and thus you have paid what is called a long bit, and lost two and a half cents, or even, by comparison with a short bit, five cents." Robert Louis Stevenson, Across the Plains, 1892. I've read that the 20 cent piece was intended to solve this problem by allowing one to pay for a one bit purchase (12.5 cents) and receive a dime in change, thus gaining instead of losing 2.5 cents.  But it was too similar both in size and design to the US quarter dollar, and was a failure.[ATTACH=full]1117567[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]