Mill (currency)
The
mill or
mille(₥) (sometimes
mil in the
UK and
Malta) is a (now-) abstract unit of
currency used sometimes in
accounting. In the
United States, it is equivalent to 1/1000 of a
United States dollar. In the
United Kingdom it was proposed during the decades of discussion on the
decimalization of the pound as a 1/1000th division of the
pound sterling. Several other currencies used the mill, such as the
Maltese lira.
The term comes from the
Latin "mille", meaning "1,000".
United States
In the United States, the term was first used by the
Continental Congress [
1] in 1786, being described as the "lowest money of accompt, of which 1000 shall be equal to the federal dollar." Coinage in the denomination of the mill was legislated in 1786, but was never carried out.
The
U.S. Coinage Act of 1792 describes milles and other subdivisions of the dollar:
Tokens in this denomination were issued by some states and local governments (and by some private interests) for such uses as payment of
sales tax. These were of inexpensive material such as
tin,
aluminum,
plastic or
paper. Rising
inflation depreciated the value of these tokens in relation to the value of their constituent materials; this depreciation led to their eventual abandonment. (Virtually none were made after the 1960s.) In some circles, the demise of the mill is regarded as the logical outcome of an "inflation-oriented" economic system (based on stocks, etc.) as opposed to a "deflation-oriented" economic system (based on the availability of tangible assets, specifically gold, silver and other precious metals).
Nowadays, most Americans are familiar with the concept of a "mill", if only peripherally. The price of gasoline being denominated almost universally (in the US) in terms of tenths of a cent (
e.g., "$2.699/gallon"). There are also common occurrences of "
half cent" (a coin struck until 1857) discounts on goods bought in quantity. The term "mill" is also still used when discussing billing in the
electric power industry as short-hand for the lengthier "1/1000 of a dollar per
kilowatt hour". Despite the commonness of such fractions of cents, the term "mill" remains widely unknown.
Property taxes are also expressed in terms of mills per dollar assessed (a "mill levy"), although most Americans aren't aware of the derivation. For instance, with a millage rate of 5.753 mills, a $100,000 house would be taxed 575,300 mills, or $575.30.
Mark Twain introduced a fictional elaboration of the mill in
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. When Hank Morgan, the American
time traveler, introduces decimal currency to
Arthurian Britain, he has it denominated in cents, mills, and "milrays", or tenths of a mill (the name perhaps suggested by "
myriad", meaning ten thousand) in anticipation of several centuries of
inflation.
United Kingdom
Proposed on several occasions as a division of the
British pound under the "Pound and Mil" system, the mill was occasionally used in
accounting. The 1862 report from the
Select Committee on Weights and Measures [
2] noted that the Equitable Insurance Company had been keeping accounts in mills (rather than in shillings and pence) for such purposes for over 100 years.
Malta
Maltese lira coinage included 2 mil, 3 mil, and 5 mil coins from 1972 to 1994, with 10 mils being equal to one cent. Prices can still be marked using mils, however these are then rounded up for accounting purposes.
*The
Egyptian pound was formerly divided into 1000 milliemes.
*The
Tunisian dinar is divided into 1000 milliemes (10 milliemes is the smallest currently-minted coin)
*The
Kuwaiti dinar is divided into 1000 fils (5 fils is the smallest currently-minted coin)
