“…Similarly farthing has been used for the
four divisions of the Shire, because the Hobbit word tharni was
an old word for ‘quarter’ seldom used in ordinary language,
where the word for ‘quarter’ was tharantin ‘fourth part’. In
Gondor tharni was used for a silver coin, the fourth part of the
castar (in Noldorin the canath or fourth part of the mirian).(20)”
The Peoples of Middle Earth, II. The Appendix on Languages, JRRT, ed. C.T.
This, aside from mentions of gold pieces and “silver pennies”, is the only passage I can find concerning currency in Middle Earth. Not much to work with, but suggestive of a long-reaching history nonetheless– like so many things Tolkien.
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