2016-05-27 Fri

The 150th birthday of the special U.S five-cent coins with not more than 25% of nickel was celebrated on 16th May. 5-cent is a good amount when it can buy you about 15 times more than it could today. The U.S. though already has a five-cent coin called as the “half dime” which was in circulation since 1790s.

But in the 1860s, Americans began to hoard silver half-dime coins due to Civil War. Some experts say that Americans did not trust paper money back then. A lot of coins were hidden under mattresses and floorboards creating hindrances in normal business. People started using postage stamps or “fractional” paper bills as currency. The U.S. did not have enough silver to redeem the bills in circulation along with half-dimes. Apart from that, the head of the Currency Bureau, Spencer M. Clark, put his own face on the bill. Congress passed a law, in April 1866, banning the “portrait or likeness of any living person” on U.S. currency.

Five-cent fractional bills were discontinued and silver half-dimes were falling short. Soon after that nickels came into existence. The first ones are known as “shield nickels” and the silver half-dime was discontinued in 1873.