the squeaky one said:
Ah, I knew they were to do with American currency. It's just that I've no idea how much they're worth. I guess in the same way that some Americans (and others) don't know what a quid, pony or monkey is.
Or, by now, some British remember what half a crown, a tanner or a bob were. Or, by now a florin or a thu'penny piece.
I enjoy dropping in a groat or half a dollar from time to time; but I specified out an inter-asteroid freighter in cubits and spans, once.
A nickel (presumably because it was pressed in that metal; odd considering how many people are allergic to it) is, if my memory is still functional, worth five USA cents, and is bigger than the ten cent piece, or "dime, on which one can stop, which was once silver.
The quarter, bigger than either and also theoretically silver, is obviously twenty five cents, unless it comes from a piece of eight (or "real de a ocho", the first American dollars) in which case it is two bits – you make change with a hacksaw.
None of them are worth much any more, and the Swiss franc, about the only currency worth saving as its value's going up faster than inflation, has no fun terms for smaller denominations. No sense of humour when it comes to money, the Swiss.
And at university I could convert MKS (that scientists were by then totally installed in but engineers, on the whole, preferred to avoid) into FFFS; Furlongs, fortnights, Fahrenheit and stones without the aid of electronics. Reading out the density of platinum in stones per cubic furlong took some time without exponents; I will now admit the system was not the most practical.