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The mill (₥) is an abstract unit of U.S. currency, equivalent to 1/1000 of a U.S. dollar. No coins were ever made in this denomination; the denomination is used sometimes in accounting. The term comes from the Latin mille, meaning 1,000. The term was invented by the United States Congress in 1786, and was described as the "lowest money of accompt, of which 1000 shall be equal to the federal dollar." Coinage in this denomination was legislated at that time, but never carried out. 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 almost complete 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).
Mill token
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for detail)The U.S. Coinage Act of 1792 (http://landru.i-link-2.net/monques/coinageact.html#Chap.) describes milles and other subdivisions of the dollar:
- "That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and milles or thousandths, a disme being the tenth part of a dollar, a cent the hundredth part of a dollar, a mille the thousandth part of a dollar, and that all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation."
Nowadays, most Americans are familiar with the concept of a "mill", if only peripherally. This is due primarily to the price of gasoline being denominated almost universally (in the US) in terms of 1/10's of a cent (e.g., "$1.699/gallon"). There are also common occurrences of "half-cent" (briefly a legitimate coinage) discounts on goods bought in quantity. Despite the commonness of such fractions of cents, the term "mill" remains widely unknown.
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