When the half penny was decommissioned in 1857 it was worth the equivalent of 10-15 cents in today's dollars. It was decommissioned because inflation had made it nearly useless and the metal was worth more than the coin.
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We should get rid of everything below the quarter. All we need are some rules for rounding up (or down). Then we could also drop the $1 dollar bill for a coin. A lot less confusion with only two main coins in circulation.
We've had $1 coins for a hot minute. You can almost only ever find them at the bank, post offices, and some other government places (the Sound Transit ticket kiosks here in Seattle spit them out, I found out last week), but they exist.
We also have/had a 50c coin, but it's huge and I believe out of circulation these days.
The genius it took to design a $1 that was basically indistinguishable from a quarter...
Casinos use the half-dollar to pay out a blackjack.