Before the three-cent nickel, there was the “fish scale,” so-called because the coin was so small a few laid on a counter would resemble the rough skin of a fish. Why Three Cents? In the early 1800s a worker might only get paid fifty cents for a day’s work and basic foods or other c...

In 1792 a US cent was worth about 20¢ in today’s money. By 1850 it had peaked at just under 26¢ making a half cent equivalent to today’s dime or more. And since commodities typically const only a few cents per pound, bushel or yard, half a cent could make a difference in everyday transactions. That’...

The first US gold deposit was found by a farm boy named Conrad Reed in North Carolina in 1799, but the 17-pound nugget would sit unnoticed (it was used as a doorstop!) until 1804 when a visiting jeweler realized what it was. Word spread and soon farmers were scouring their land for gold scattered ab...

If you’re a US cent coin collector you may have noticed that prices for uncirculated pennies vary depending on the coin’s color. That’s because all US cent coins—and many foreign coins—have copper in (or on) them. Until 1983, with the exception of the 1943 wartime steel penny and a brief period in t...

The area now known as Vermont was claimed by both New York and New Hampshire until Vermonters proclaimed the territory an independent republic in 1777 after the original thirteen colonies declared independence from England. It remained such until Vermont was admitted as the fourteenth state on March...

The so-called Mercury dime was born of a mistake—one that was compounded by misnaming the coin in common usage. US coin legislation allows the Treasury to change coin designs every 25 years without congressional approval…but doesn’t require it. Officials were under the misapprehension that changes w...

Father’s Day is coming and what better way to show your dad how much he means to you than handing him a zillion bucks? Crazy, you say? You may not have a lot of ready cash on hand, but you’ll be surprised at how little it takes to get your hands on a few million dollars…Zimbabwe dollars, at least. <...

Making coining dies can involve incredibly detailed work given the size of some elements like dates and mint marks. While modern techniques have made the task easier, in earlier days some elements that resided near the coins’ rims were often hand punched to preserve their clarity. Modern equipment h...