Demand for New U.S. Coin Design In the mid-19th century, people were becoming unhappy with the artwork on U.S. coins. They thought they were “too European,” too ordinary, or just too ugly. That prompted mint director James Kimball to announce a design competition for new coin designs. But politics i...

Nigeria is a West African nation with a land area about the same as the portion of the U.S. east of the Appalachian Mountains. Its population of 182 million makes it the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-largest in the world. As of 2014, Nigeria’s nominal GDP of $1 trillion overtook So...

Your dad’s worth way more than a million to you and what better way to show it than with a crisp $100 million bill? That’s just one of many ways a gift of collectible and novelty coins and currency can show how much Dad means to you this Father’s Day. A genuine trillion-dollar note is guaranteed to ...

The original “Mercury” dime was born in 1916, possibly as the result of a series of mistakes. The first, at least according to mint director Robert W. Woolley, was the design of existing U.S. coinage. He felt the 1892 coin designs by Charles E. Barber were dull and hard to produce. The second error ...

Laws regarding altering or defacing coins and currency are on the books in nearly all countries. Their principal goal is to prevent fraudulent use of the money such as changing its face value or bullion weight. For example, it was once common practice for shady characters to scrape small amounts of ...

A nation's money often makes a statement. That's certainly been true with U.S. currency. Over the years, American coin and paper money designs have celebrated everything from the Founding Fathers to electricity. The designs chosen also reflect the national mood at the time, making coin and currency ...

Whether you’re buying coins as a collector or as investments, it’s important for you to know what you’re paying for. What seems to be a slight difference to the untrained eye can be very significant to an expert and can affect a coin’s value substantially. Do you have to be an expert to keep from ge...

1899 $1 Black Eagle Silver CertificateOne of the joys of collecting U.S. currency is the number of different designs it has had over the years—some of them quite unique and even beautiful. The U.S. 1899 $1 Black Eagle Silver Certificate is one of those. While not as ornate as the iconic 1896 $5 bil...