I hear this a lot, even in songs, e.g.
If I had a bill for all the philosophies I shared
If I had a penny for all the possibilities I presented
If I had a dime for every hand thrown up in the air
My wealth would render this no less severe
I guess it started with one of such variant, and everybody then just began using the others. Am I correct? Which variant is the original or the most used one? Or is it just randomly equivalent?
Best Answer
Mathematically speaking, the higher the value of the denomination of money you use, the lower the number of the multiplier has to be in order to reach an impressive amount.
So I would guess that "if I had a penny for each time [EVENT]" implies that [EVENT] happens roughly a hundred times as often as if I said "if I had a dollar for each time [EVENT]". If this theory is true, you wouldn't need a standard amount, you would just adapt the phrase to the situation.
According to Google ngrams, the current ranking from most popular to least is dollar, nickel, dime, penny, quarter.