The history of United States coinage
is a story that parallels the rise of America. Starting from a humble beginning in a basement in Philadelphia in the first few years of the country, it grew to a large highly sophisticated system that produces millions of coins per year. Due to a lack of silver, the first silver coins produced by the Mint came from silverware contributed by George and Martha Washington. It wasn't until after the Civil War that coinage became widely used for all types of transactions. Until that time, barter and money substitutes, such as tokens, script, and foreign coins, were used as a mediums of exchange. During the 1830's, and then again during the Civil War, coins were in such short supply that merchants and private individuals began producing cent-sized coins, just to make change for daily transactions. In America, it was legal until 1857 to use foreign money in transactions. The Spanish dollars and their fractional parts, called "bits," were quite common during colonial times until the mid-1800s.
President Theodore Roosevelt sparked a change in the coin designs fom a standardized institutional theme to more artistic and attractive designs. The President enlisted the help of one of the country's most prominent sculptors to create some of the most beautiful coins in the history of the country. Until recent times, the value of the silver and gold coins depended on their intrinsic metal value. This was a constant headache for the Mint, as the value of gold and silver would rise, and the coins would disappear from circulation to be melted and sold for their bullion value. It wasn't until 1964 that the Mint totally abandoned precious metals for the day-to-day coinage and changed the composition to what we see today as modern copper-nickel clad coinage.
Come and take the journey into what seems so ubiquitous today and learn the fascinating history of these small metal objects in our pockets and purses.
About the Author
Doug West is a retired engineer, small business owner, and an experienced non-fiction writer with several books to his credit. His writing interests are general, with special expertise in science, biographies, numismatics, and "How to" topics. Doug has a Ph.D. in General Engineering from Oklahoma State University.