These are random musings of my life journey, the people, animals, places, and events which have woven, and continue to weave, a tapestry that is me. We all know there is no real destination, only the ongoing experiences which blend together, creating the trail. Each step gives a glimpse of what is to come, without allowing me to see the end result. It is exciting. I have a home base that is mine, that gives me a place to rest. This is it. This is where my heart is, no matter where I journey...................

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Tuesay Trivia

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Money, Credit .... That's what makes the world go round. And all this time, you thought it was love that did that, right? HA!!

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CREDIT
In the beginning, credit cards were just charge accounts, offered by individual stores and only usable at those stores. The first credit card that could be used at multiple locations was offered by The Diner’s Club in 1950.

American Express started off as a shipping company in 1850, shipping products across the United States and capitalizing on the limited reach and slow speed of the United States
Postal Service. They began selling money orders and traveler’s checks in 1882 and issued its first credit card in 1958.

Visa was originally called BankAmericard, a card offered by Bank of America in 1958 in California. By 1970, they had created an association, called the National BankAmericard, Inc., of all the US Banks that issued the BankAmericard. It wasn’t renamed to Visa until 1976.

Discover Card was introduced by Sears in 1985 and gained notoriety because it charged no annual fee. At the time, Sears also owned the brokerage Dean Witter Reynolds Organization and the Discover brand was integrated into that organization. When Dean Witter merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997, Discover went along for the ride.

The Visa logo colors were chosen because the blue represented the sky and the gold represented color of the hills in California where Bank of America was founded.

In 1984, American Express billed their Platinum Card as extremely exclusive and it had an annual fee of $250 ($484.84 in 2006 dollars). Today, the extremely exclusive card for American Express is their black Centurion card with a $2,500 annual fee! (and requirement to spend $250,000 a year).


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"Waste your money and you're only out of money, but
waste your time and you've lost a part of your life."

~Michael LeBoeuf, American business author and former management
professor at the University of New Orleans

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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
The whole country makes money when the Mint makes money. This is called "seigniorage"—the difference between the cost of making a coin and its face value. This profit runs the Mint and puts extra funds into the country's Treasury— funds then spent on education, health care, defense, and other services for the nation.

Nickels, dimes, and quarters are pickled before they're minted... not in vinegar, though, like the pickled cucumbers you get on hamburgers. Instead, these copper-nickel blanks are soaked in a special chemical solution. This "pickling" washes and polishes the blanks.

In 1694, England minted "Elephant Tokens"—two half pennies meant to increase interest in the colonies. On the reverse one penny said, "God Preserve New England"; the other, "God Preserve Carolina and the Lord Proprieters."

The "New Jersey Cent" was a copper coin minted from 1786 to 1788 — more than 200 years before the New Jersey quarter became the third coin in the 50 State Quarters Program.

"Silly Head" is the popular name for a U.S. cent minted in 1839. The coin got this nickname because most people thought the picture of Miss Liberty on the obverse (front) looked silly.

Once, there were "white cents" that didn't look at all like pennies. These were the Flying Eagle one cent coins of 1856–58 and the Indian Head one cent coins of 1859–64. They were made from metal that contained 88 parts copper to 12 parts nickel, which gave them a light or white color.
(usmint.gov)

"In God We Trust" was first used on coins during the Civil War. This inscription was added to the two-cent piece of 1864. But it didn't become necessary to add it to all coins until 1955. The inscription "E Pluribus Unum," which means "One from Many" (as in one country made from many states) was first used on the gold $5 piece of 1795.

The first U.S. commemorative coin was produced in 1892 for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It featured Christopher Columbus, the man then credited with discovering the "New World." In 2000, another commemorative coin was produced to honor Leif Ericson, whom we now know reached the shores of the New World almost 500 years before Columbus.

Calvin Coolidge was the first President to have his portrait appear on a coin struck during his lifetime. The historic image was on the obverse of the 1926 Sesquicentennial of American Independence.

The first coin to feature an African-American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar. It was minted from 1946 to 1951. A National Monument was designated to Washington in Hardy, Virginia, on April 5, 1956.

The dollar, half-dollar, quarter, and 10-cent (dime) denominations were originally produced from precious metals (gold and silver). The reeded edges were created to make sure no one would alter the coins and try to file off the edges to retrieve some of the precious metals.

Mint marks show what minting facility your coins came from— "P" for Philadelphia, "D" for Denver, and "S" for San Francisco. This mark can be found to the right of the subject's face on the obverse side of each circulating coin— with the exception of the "Philadelphia" Lincoln cent, which has no mint mark.
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4 comments:

  1. Well, I guess I will never have to worry about getting an American Express Platinum card. :)

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  2. Very Interesting trivia we did the whole 50 quarter collection for both kids it will be interesting if they increase in value although I doubt it.

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  3. I saved those, too. I tried to get a full set for each grandchild, but I missed a few. I've been told the value of them is ..... face value!

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If you have something to say about it, just stick out your thumb, and I'll slow down so you can hop aboard! But hang on, 'cause I'm movin' on down the road!!! No time to waste!!!