"That the Money of Account, to correspond with the division of coins, ..
proceed in a decimal ratio, agreeably to the forms and manner following, viz.
- Mills: The lowest money of accompt, of which one thousand shall be equal to the federal dollar, or money unit __ 0.001
- Cents: The highest copper piece, of which one hundred shall be equal to the dollar __ 0.010
- Dimes: The lowest silver coin, ten of which shall be equal to the dollar ... 0.100
- Dollar: The highest silver coin __ 1.000 "
Source : Journals of the Continental Congress, Tuesday August 8, 1786
The US mill currency
The term
mill was used for the first time by the
Continental Congress in 1786, only 10 years after the country's Declaration of Independence. One mill represented 1⁄1,000 of a dollar or 0.1¢. As such, the mill
- also written as mil - was never released as an official coin or note.
During the 1930s, the Great Depression period, some cities and a number of American states introduced sales tax tokens, expressed in cents but also in mills. Most of these tokens were produced in denominations for one mill, one and a half mills, two mills and five mills. They were struck in aluminium, brass, copper, zinc, pewter or produced from plastic, wood and even cardboard. After the 1960s virtually none were made anymore.
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Missouri 5 mills sales tax token in zinc
Notice the map of Missouri in the design |
It is interesting to know how these tokens were used. Shopkeepers and merchants had to pay sales taxes to the state on the sales amount realized in a day. On small sums, e.g. a 10c purchase for a chocolate bar, it was difficult to tax the shopper a percentage of the sales price as there were no coins for such small amounts. Sales tax tokens form the solution. Now, the merchant gave back change in mill tokens and the shopper could pay its next purchase with regular coins and taxes with tokens. This enabled the shopkeeper to collect taxes on each transaction.
No banknotes, no coins, but scripophily !
No official banknotes nor coins have been issued in the mill currency unit. But apparently there are such stock certificates. American stock certificates often mention the official par value, the initial selling price of a single share of stock. One can find certificates of $100 par value, $1 par value, 1ct par value, and in other combinations as well. Lots of companies issued stock mentioning a par value of $.001, the equivalent of a mil. Yet, very few securities actually mention the mil denomination. Here is an example from the Game-A-Tron Corporation, a producer of computer-controlled arcade games.
detail from a Game-A-Tron stock certificate stating the ownership of
shares of One half (1/2) mil Par Value Capital Stock
double-click image to enlarge
The arcade game industry
Early mechanical arcade games were already installed in the 1920s in public places like bars and amusement parks. Fortune telling and pinball machines are examples of these coin-operated entertainment machines. In the 1960s new types of electro-mechanical arcade games were introduced such as Sega's Periscope : a submarine simulator and light gun shooter, see
here. By the 1970s a video terminal was introduced in the concept. In 1972 Atari releases Pong, see
there, a two-dimensional table tennis video game and became the first commercially successful video game.
These early arcade machines were designed around discrete logic circuits comprising each element of the game itself. These so-called "finite-state machines" perform a predetermined sequence of actions depending on a sequence of events with which they are presented. Some of these arcade games became extremely popular. In 1978 the Japanese Taito Corporation launched Space Invaders. The game caused a national shortage of 100 yen coins in Japan, leading to a production increase of coins to meet demand for the game.
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Game-A-Tron Corporation
Shares of 1/2 mil par value, 1981
double-click to enlarge image |
