so let's convert all those coins to pennies only.
so Phil had 2 quarters plus 1 dime plus 3 pennies, that 25 + 25 + 10 + 3 = 63 cents total.
and Paul had 2 nickels, that's 5 + 5 = 10 cents total.
well, if one is going to be 1 cent more than the other, let's sum them both up and see how the split goes, 63 cents from Phil plus 10 cents from Paul give us a total of 73 cents.
half of 73 is 36.5 or 36 cents and half of another, sadly we can't cut one with an ax for that otherwise the coin is not good, so let's not cut it and keep it intact, so we can split 73 as 36 and 37, so that means Phil ended up with 36 cents and Paul with 37 cents, one more penny.
Let's recall Paul started with 10 cents, it ended up with 37 cents, that means he got 27 cents more from Phil, 25 + 1 + 1 = one quarter and two pennies.