Saturday Trivia: Why is the Nickel Larger than the Dime? *Possibles Posted*

[WoodenJefferson]

Why is the 5 cent Jefferson nickel larger in size than the 10 cent the Roosevelt dime?

 

What determines the sizes of our coins?

 

Today, the sizes of United States coins can help you quickly to tell them apart, but have nothing to do with their actual values. Metal prices are constantly fluctuating, so the values of circulating coins aren’t tied to metallic content.

 

So, what's the answer then?

 

[Dwaine]

I don't know the answer but why would anyone want to make a Corvette into a limo. Just doesn't look right to me.

[Stanley]

Because there is more volume of material in the nickel than the dime

[WoodenJefferson]

Because there is more volume of material in the nickel than the dime

 

Well, that explains the physics behind the question, I'm more interested in how it evolved through time to become larger in size.

 

Opening the door to the Stretchvette...~buzzzzz~ OUT!

[Stanley]

Sorry Woody...I thought it was a trick question.

[bsshog40]

Maybe it had something to due with the Dime having to be 1/10th the amount of silver than what was in a dollar in ther beginning. You can't stretch that small of an amount of silver very far and still have the coin be 90percent silver over-all. It could've been made larger but then more copper would have had to be added.

[WoodenJefferson]

Maybe it had something to due with the Dime having to be 1/10th the amount of silver than what was in a dollar in ther beginning. You can't stretch that small of an amount of silver very far and still have the coin be 90percent silver over-all. It could've been made larger but then more copper would have had to be added.

 

You are on the right track as far as the ratio of silver in the early coinage. Keep thinking denomination and not the actual metal content in a Jefferson Nickel, how has a half of a dime transformed through out history into present the present day nickel?

 

The question was: What determined the sizes of our coins? (more or less, then and now in reguards to the present day nickel)

[Oldtrader3]

It had to be differentiated in size to have more alloy than the 3 cent nickle. Also it had to be differentiated from the silver half dime that was in circulation at the time.

[bsshog40]

Maybe it has something to do with the change from Half Dimes made of silver to the making of copper-nickel Nickels. The value was to be a 1cent per gram which makes the coins 5grams and would have to be made larger than the dime to do this???

[WoodenJefferson]

Oldtrader3

It had to be differentiated in size to have more alloy than the 3 cent nickle. Also it had to be differentiated from the silver half dime that was in circulation at the time.

 

bsshog40

 

Maybe it has something to do with the change from Half Dimes made of silver to the making of copper-nickel Nickels. The value was to be a 1cent per gram which makes the coins 5grams and would have to be made larger than the dime to do this?

 

You both are on the right track now, so I will reveal the answer, although opinions may vary.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Way back in 1793, when the first U.S. coins were produced, the U.S. Mint did link the sizes of coins to a particular metal standard—the silver dollar.

 

Thanks to the proposal by Thomas Jefferson, the United States settled on a decimal currency system rather than the cumbersome pound sterling system of Great Britain or the awkward denomination system based on the silver 8 reales and gold 8 escudos of Spain.

 

Except for the copper cent, all coins were produced in proportionate metallic content to the dollar, and their sizes were regulated accordingly.

 

The fifty-cent coin contained one half (1/2) as much silver as the dollar (100)

 

the quarter had one fourth (1/4) as much

 

the dime or ten-cent coin had one tenth (1/10) as much

 

The five-cent coin, or half-dime as it was called then, had only one-twentieth (1/20) the silver as the dollar

 

But it was so small (see dimentions) that it was difficult for people to handle. So in 1866, Mint officials decided to make it larger by changing its content from silver and copper to a combination of copper and nickel ~walaa~ the modern size nickel was born.

 

Dimentions:

 

half-dime diameter 15.5 mm converted to inches = .6102 wt. 1.35 g average wt.

 

dime diameter 17.9 mm converted to inches = .7047 wt. 2.5 g

 

nickel diameter 20.5 mm converted to inches = .8071 wt. 5.0 g

 

Another theory involves the Civil War, which I find more appropriate than a simple decision on the part of mint officials with big fingers.

 

The tide turned against the half dime during the Civil War, when all U.S. coinage – but particularly coins with precious-metal content – vanished from circulation, ending up either abroad or in hoarders’ hands. In 1866, as part of its effort to re-seed U.S. commerce with federal coinage, the Mint introduced a new five-cent piece made from an alloy of 75-percent copper and 25-percent nickel – the coin now known as the “Shield nickel.” Despite its bland design and its lack of intrinsic value relative to the half dime, this new coin won immediate public acceptance.

 

The half dime remained in production through 1873, but the handwriting on the wall was clearly a parting message: “So long, old girl, it’s been good to know you all these years!” The closing years witnessed some of the lowest mintages since the very earliest years of the half dime’s run. These included outputs of 10,725 in 1866, and 8,625 in 1867 at the Philadelphia Mint and – in the biggest show-stopper of all – just one specimen in 1870 at San Francisco.

 

 

FYI:

 

NICKEL

Chemistry: Ni, Elemental Nickel

Class: Elements

Group: Iron

Uses: as a mineral specimen and scientific studies.

Specimens

 

Native Nickel is extremely rare in nature, as it is almost always alloyed with iron. Iron meteorites, for example, are typically 6% to 20% nickel.

In 1967 native nickel was identified in samples from Bogata in New Caledonia. It forms in serpentinized ultramafic rocks from low-temperature hydrothermal activity. It has since been identified from a number of other locations, including meteor strikes.

 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

Color is bluish white.

Luster is metallic.

Transparency is opaque.

Crystal System is isometric

Crystal Habits crystal form is extremely rare; cubic when found, but generally granular or massive.

Cleavage is absent.

Fracture is hackly.

Streak is gray metallic.

Hardness is 4-5

Specific Gravity is 7.8-8.2 (heavy even for metallic)

Other Characteristics: malleable, mildly attracted to magnets.

Associated Minerals are olivine, pyroxenes, and some minerals that are only found in meteorites. In terrestrial samples it is found with gold and platinum and with sulfide ores.

Notable Occurrences New Caledonia, Meteor Crater, Arizona and San Diego County California, USA,

Best Field Indicators are environment, weak attraction to magnets, malleablility.

 

Thanks for playing along. You two be waiting out front for a ride in the Stretchvette.

[bsshog40]

Alright WJ. It's raining here tho', can I wait under the porch til you get here?

[RWB]

From The Numismatist’s Sarcastic Companion:

 

Q: Why is the nickel (worth five cents) larger than the dime (worth ten cents)?

 

A: The confusion started in 1792 when the early US Mint struck some half-dismes from silver that had been used for underwear by Martha Washington (or maybe Martha Stewart). When President Washington saw the tiny half-dismes he said to Alexander Hamilton, who happened to be in the neighborhood, “Alex, these little half-dismes are too small. I can hardly find them in my pocket. We need something bigger, but maybe worth less so it’s not so easily lost, and if it is lost it will be worth less so the loss won’t be as great, and ….Oh, and by the way, change the spelling to ‘D-I-M-E’ – that darned ‘S’ keeps getting stuck in my dentures.”

 

Hamilton had other things to do, such as preparing for target practice with Aaron Burr, and the matter was ignored until the 1860s. Then, during the Civil War, the mint was trying to get coins – any kind of coins – to circulate. But every time they released silver or gold coins, the public scooped them up and hid them. The mint director – a fellow named James “Da Fish” Pollock – got the bright idea of making coins that not only had no gold or silver in them, but were so God-awful ugly that folks wouldn’t want them sitting around the house uglying up the place and would go spend them.

 

So the mint did this one afternoon just after the engraver finished his lunch and the boys in the coining department had figured out why the chicken crossed the road. They used some old copper barrel bands and a hard, nasty metal called “nickel,” and struck off a bunch of these kind of silvery looking things. Pollock was aware of Washington’s 1792 comments about half-dismes, so he made ‘em bigger but kept the value at five cents, so the foolish would think the silvery new coins actually had silver in them (kind of like the “golden” dollar, you might say.)

 

Well, the new ugly copper-nickel coins circulated, and circulated and circulated and by 1873 everyone got tired of the tiny half-dimes and the Congress told the mint to stop making them. They were also making so much money on the new coins that the government knew a good thing when they saw it, so they kept on making them with Liberty-ladies and Native folks and cows and canoes and stuff on them.

[WoodenJefferson]

~making U-turn~ pulling up to the curb and opening passengers door of the Stretchvette...RWB, you ride up front with me...adjusting rear camera to passenger compartment

 

~intercom~ click

 

"You guys comfy back there?"

 

Good expalination RWB...go to the head of the class.

[RWB]

Thanks, but I'd prefer to sit at the back of the class with my scotch. Anyway, I doubt that stretch 'Vette can even do a "U" turn....and sombody's got a better explaination, so rock on.

[coinman1794]

I haven't read the the replies, but the dime is smaller because our coinage was sized at a time when metalic content did matter. The half dime was half the weight of a dime -- but people didn't like half dimes because they were too small -- so it's not surprising that the move to a nickel composion opened the way for a larger coin.

[WoodenJefferson]

Coinman1974...although there is no specific answer to this weeks trivia question, (the silver content and weight of each denomination was very specific though) you still imparted some of the theory behind the change.

 

I'm quite sure that it was a combination of everyone's answer here that finally swayed the Mother Mint to begin the larger diameter/weight copper/nickel composition 5 cent Shield coin in 1866.

 

Unless someone can pin point the root of the change, we will never, ever really truely know. History can be fleeting if documentation is lost, obsured or opinionated.