Lowest denomination coin making a purchase?

Browsing through the forum a question suddenly popped up in my head (and I am sorry if it has been asked previously):

Which coin had the lowest denomination that could make you a purchase?

As a kid when I grew up in Denmark in the 1970's, using cash for daily purchases was the norm (cards where only introduced in the mid-1980's). The little cash I had was mostly found lying on sidewalks and was readily spent on candy. The cheapest candy that could be purchased in the suburb where I lived had a price of 25 øre (0.25 krone) , which also was the denomination of a coin. That could be one piece of wrapped chewing gum in the size of one piece of Starburst, or it could be a hollow starshaped liquorice rod with various taste: sweet, salty, toffee or raspberry.

One time the school arranged a trip to a camp in another part of the country, where I had the mindblowing experience for a kid, that one of these hollow starshaped liquorice rods were sold for only 10 øre (N#2133 , N#981 , N#1423).

Today, the 50 øre (0.5 krone) coin is the lowest denomation that is still circulating, even though it is not possible to make a purchase with it. For that several kroner are needed. It might seem strange to some, but the cheapest purchase in most supermarkets is actually beer. A 33 centiliter (0.33 liter) bottle cost somewhere between 2 and 3 kroner plus 1 krone for return deposit. 

En Pinocchio kugle var 1 øre i min barndom. Lakrids dækket med grønt sukker! Nu er jeg 76.5 aar gammel!

A Pinocchio ball was 1 penny in my childhood. Licorice covered in green sugar!

I can remember buying a bread roll for 10 Pfennig in the 90s, today I bought one for 17 eurocent.

If you buy them today they are probably cheaper on a per ball basis, if factor in inflation that is.

You could buy a  ‘One Penny bubble gum’ in Ireland around 1970! You could also buy some confectionery products for a Half Penny.

I grew up in South Africa and in the 70's & 80's we could buy 2 Wilson Toffees or 2 squares of Chappies bubblegum for 1 cent.  The Wilson toffees were the stickiest toffees I ever encountered.  It always felt like it would pull out one or more of your teeth.

Pretzel sticks, a penny apiece 1960's.

In Ukraine, in early 2000s the cheapest thing you could have bought was a box of matches, it cost usually 5 kopiikas, around 1-3 US cents at that time.

N#3104

In the USSR, those matches cost 1 kopeck. The same price was for a glass of seltzer water at a machine.

N#767

Right now, with inflation in Ukraine, the prices went up, of course. But I think you can still buy a box of matches at the market for 2 hryvnias, or maybe even cheaper.

N#140065

Though I cannot confirm it with personal experience right now. In bulk (pack of 10), they are sold at 9-12₴, but I am sure they sell them by piece as well for smokers.

https://hoztorg.org.ua/ua/p1519040464-spichki-hozyajstvennye-kozachok.html

I'm on the younger side, so prices from my childhood are much closer to today's. By the time I was growing up, cheap individually wrapped items were long gone. The cheapest thing I remember buying were strings of 3-4 Zotz candies for $.33, but these were few and far between. More often, I would get a regular sized candy bar (think Snickers or Kit Kat) for $.75.

Growing up in 1980s New Zealand, our smallest coin was 1 cent and for that you could buy “basic lollies” like a smoker (A circular piece of sherbeted sugar) or a single pebble, jellybean until about 1984 when inflation made most basic lollies 2 cents. 

New Zealand 1 cent coin 1967 - 1989 (Worth about 0.7 US cent or 0.3 UK pence)

2 cents got you better lollies like a jersey caramel, a large peppermint, a single lifesaver or deriative. Or after 1985 a basic lolly like a smoker

The 2 cent coin 1967 - 1989

3 cents was the big leagues, for that you got a chocolate button, jelly telephone, anything sugary or jubey, licorice allsorts, a Mackintosh toffee etc, and was the cost a letter postage or newspaper until 1970.

Of course most stores were not happy with small children spending 1 or 2 cents on candy, so most made up mixtures of 10 cents, 20 cents and for the really lucky - 50 cents. Growing up through 80s inflation I can remember the “mixture” sizes shrinking and a 20 cent one go from 9 or 10 lollies down to 3 or 4 and the 10 cents one disappearing.

By the time I had outgrown lollies in 1989/90 the 1c and 2c were gone, most basic lollies were 2 for 5c, 3 for 10c or 5 cents each and they had $1 and $2 mixtures. 

Outside of childhood in the early 80s, small coins were very useful, any coin to 20c could be used in public telephones, where local calls were 2 cents until 1983 and 5c until 1988. In 1990 they brought in phonecards and buying a coin call could no longer be done due to kids vandalising the phones and stealing money (There was also a massive push in home phone ownership in the mid 1980s - I can remember in 1982, we still had a party line phone, and one with a coin slot in it!) Paper prices went from 10 cents around 1980 to 50 cents by 1991 (The papers got thicker and became more colourful). Milk started at 14 cents a pint in 1980 and reached 65 cents by 1988 and then switched to tetrapacks in 1988 with them costing at least $1.20 a litre).

Basically the 80s was the last hurrah of small change, as between 1987 and 1990, our society got more mechanised, more technical, expensive and less folksy. The 1980s Labour government modernised our country but also destroyed and made it more like the USA and less like the Soviet Union.

In the mid-1960's, I could purchase 3 licorice babies with a Cdn. Cent.

I am still quite young so I can't really remember buying anything with just one lowest value coin in Indonesia, but my colleagues told me there used to be a small noodle snack that costs Rp 50 in early 90s

N#5928

To this date the coin is still a legal tender but the value is basically worthless. If you give it to a beggar, the beggar is very likely to throw it away.

Nowadays in big cities, one Rp 500 coin ( N#1676 ) can get you a 200ml mineral water cup. In a more rural area it is still possible to buy candies/snacks with one Rp 200 coin.

In the mid 80's I could buy one slice of salami from the local butcher shop for one dime.

Growing up in the 60's prices were much less than today of course. I remember penny candy which truly was $0.01 for each piece. Gas was 19 cents per gallon, and I remember a McDonalds ad that said you could get 2 hamburgers, fries and a soft drink and change back from your dollar!

I also grew up in the 70s. Then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

But in the 1970s, it was also true for the 80s

five pennies could not buy anything

again nothing in stores for this coin

In our town, one ordinary roll (everywhere in the whole republic was for 30 halers) only with us for 20

one box of matches for smokers. Powder fizzy drink for water,,shumák,, in a package.

My frequent cash in my pocket (running to the deli across the street during recess at school) a triangular donut with marmalade for a snack.

1 liter of milk 2 KČS

Chewing gum, the most popular brand of "totality", always 1 KČS ( it's also on the packaging)

,, the above applies,, Ivan

in NZ now, the lowest coin is 10 cents, smallest purchase I can make in my area is a single lollipop for 20 cents

Still using pennies here in the UK, although you cannot spend a penny on its own any more unless you donate it to charity after paying 99p for something with a pound coin.  

Strange to think that only 40 years ago we divided the penny into a half penny, sixty years ago into a farthing, and more than a hundred and fifty years ago into a quarter of a farthing.  It would be interesting to see what could have been bought with a quarter of a farthing.  😁

The ravages of inflation…

1st class postage stamps over the years:

1840

1973

2023  =  £1.10

LDC63

Still using pennies here in the UK, although you cannot spend a penny on its own any more unless you donate it to charity after paying 99p for something with a pound coin.  

 

Strange to think that only 40 years ago we divided the penny into a half penny, sixty years ago into a farthing, and more than a hundred and fifty years ago into a quarter of a farthing.  It would be interesting to see what could have been bought with a quarter of a farthing.  😁

In the 14th century AD, a farthing would buy you a head of lettuce, a herring or a small container of small beer (Watered down ale drunk by everyone due to the water being cholerific). A penny bought you a capon, which was a small chicken.

My guess is a boiled sweet would have cost you ¼ of a farthing, my catalogue says the coin was only used in Ceylon and minted for there. The ⅓ farthing was used in Malta as it was equivalent to 1 grano, an old measurement. Smallest actual coin then was the Half farthing.

I remember when  in my childwood, all the way back to the 60's in Portugal, I was able to buy candy for 10 tostões (X centavos). 

N#1236

Those coins are still collectable.

Poland has a 1 Grosz coin - worth slightly more than ¼ Euro cent - I have been looking out for something priced at 1 Grosz…

I still remember the old 1 Cent & 2 Cents here in New Zealand.

They were pulled from circulation in late 1989, but not declared no longer legal tender until 1990.

Back in the late 1980's in my home town of Wanganui, I bought a book for 99 Cents - 1 Cent change from a 1 Dollar note.

I also remember the 50c. mixtures of sweets from my many visits to the various corner shops I went to.

In February 1991, the $1 & $2 coins were finally released after a delay for some reason - as they had been planned for release in November 1990, but the $1 & $2 notes were left in circulation for a few months until they were also pulled from circulation for good.

10 Cents has been the bottom denomination coin since late 2006 - & New Zealand is now a numismatic desert, as the decimal coin series has become dull & boring.

So looking forward to King Charles III's coins when they are finally released into circulation.

Aidan.

And yet these 10 cent pieces of ours now, look like the old 1c and 2c except they are cheaper and nastier.

The pictures show how nasty coins from 2020 can get already and the 2nd picture shows more worn ones, the last picture is what they look like. Its 20mm in size and is minted in copper plated steel in Canada.

They have no practical use.

Freddos are 25p now, used to be 10p in the mid to late 2000s and single sweets at mall sweet machines are 20p so to buy even canned goods you would need 50p coins.

If your lucky now you could buy lunch for £2.

It seems like now the £1 and 50p coins get the most use now these days.

When I was a kid, I remember there being some individually packed bubblegum (called Chunga Lunga) that was sold for either 50 fenings (0.25€) or 1 mark (0.5€). Nowadays, you can buy a 0.2l juice box for 50 fenings or take a ride in a funicular for that same price.

The cheapest thing you could buy with only one coin in my country (Greece) is a chewing gum. It costs 10 euro cents for many years.

My wife tells me where she grew up in Oaxaca/Veracruz, she was able to buy tacos with a single 1 peso coin (and she tells me they were delicious!) Those same tacos would have probably cost 8 pesos now, if they were still around… Here in Tijuana there are tacos as cheap as 10 or 15 pesos, though they are small compared to the average large taco (which cost 25-40 ea).

Despite there being 50c coins, and 10 and 20 cent coins before they were demonetized a few years ago, no one actually uses them except for a sum in whole pesos. My wife does not recall anything costing a fraction of a peso. Supermarkets will round up and make a donation for any fraction.

In the sixties I could get 8 Black Jacks or Fruit Salad for 1d.

In the seventies it had gone down to 4 for 1p.

This was a double hit, as 1p (1 New Penny) was worth 2d (2 old pennies). 

Until 31st Dec. 2022, it was possible to buy at the post offices in France a one-eurocent stamp.

By the end of 2010's, 5-cent stamp was enough to frank voter's card.

RubbyOriginal

When I was a kid, I remember there being some individually packed bubblegum (called Chunga Lunga) that was sold for either 50 fenings (0.25€) or 1 mark (0.5€). Nowadays, you can buy a 0.2l juice box for 50 fenings or take a ride in a funicular for that same price.

You can also get a small bun (called kifla) for 10 fenings (0.05€) or 20 fenings (0.10€). Both are also coin denominations

KennyG

Here in Tijuana there are tacos as cheap as 10 or 15 pesos, though they are small compared to the average large taco (which cost 25-40 ea).

The price of tacos has been growing rapidly in previous years. In 2018 a standard order of 5 small tacos “de pastor” was 40 pesos, a few months ago they costed 70, and now they cost 80.

And the smallest coin that can buy something here in Oaxaca right now… well, recently I´ve bought 7 small tomatoes for 14 pesos, so 1 tomato should be around 2 pesos.

Maybe I need to start buying tomatoes in Southern Mexico now, they are like $8 - $15 a kg here. That would be 200 Pesos or so for about 10 tomatoes.

ciscoins

KennyG

Here in Tijuana there are tacos as cheap as 10 or 15 pesos, though they are small compared to the average large taco (which cost 25-40 ea).

The price of tacos has been growing rapidly in previous years. In 2018 a standard order of 5 small tacos “de pastor” was 40 pesos, a few months ago they costed 70, and now they cost 80.

 

And the smallest coin that can buy something here in Oaxaca right now… well, recently I´ve bought 7 small tomatoes for 14 pesos, so 1 tomato should be around 2 pesos.

Yes the unfortunate truth about taco prices. Though I prefer having the individual large tacos than the tiny “orden” tacos.

About fruits & vegetables, one might find that fruits such as strawberries, and weirdly enough milk is significantly cheaper and better quality in the US than in MX, and one could (if they dare) cross the border with them to take home. But I would never do that.