Commems Collection Classic: What If? 1884 US Metric System Coinage

In February 1884, during the 48th Congress, Justin Smith Morrill (R-VT) introduced a bill in the United States ("US") Senate "Relating to the improvement of the coinage." Once introduced, the bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Finance.

The bill had a number of interesting provisions:

1. The Director of the Mint was directed to temporarily hire:

"five artists or persons distinguished in departments of art, or in knowledge of coinage and medals, to be approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall investigate and examine the whole subject of our existing system of coinage, with a view to its improvement and greater perfection of execution as to metals, relative value, and also as to devices, legends, and inscriptions"

Each artist/individual hired was to be paid $2,500 for their review work/analysis, with an additional $750 to be paid for each new coin design adopted.

2. Congress was to receive a report on the results of the design review results no later than December 1, 1884. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State and the Director of the Mint were to prepare the consolidated Report.

Following the Report:

"First. All new coins shall be based on the metric system.

Note: "Metric System" and "Decimal System" are not interchangeable terms when describing coinage. A "Decimal System" is one based on units of 10 (e.g., one cent, ten cents, 100 cents/one dollar). A "Metric System" is one based on measurement units (e.g., Peso = 25 grams; Half Peso = 12.5 grams).

"Second. All new fractional silver coins shall contain an amount of silver equal, in proportion to the nominal values respectively represented, to the standard silver dollar.

"Third. In lieu of the five-cent and three-cent nickel coins a new five-cent silver coin shall be coined.

"Fourth. In lieu of any coins made chiefly or in part of copper a new one-cent coin of pure nickel shall be coined."

Talk about an alternate path for US coinage! Coinage based on the Metric system, a Five-Cent coin struck in silver and a pure nickel cent vs. the 95% copper cent then being struck!

Note: Countries using metric system based coinage in 1884 included: Chile, Columbia, Ecuador (Latin Monetary Union ("LMU") alignment) , France (LMU), Greece (LMU), Italy (LMU), Peru (LMU), Romania (LMU), Spain (LMU), Switzerland (LMU) and Venezuela (LMU). Other countries would follow in the years that followed.

3. On an annual basis:

"the Director of the Mint shall cause an examination to be made of all the medals executed at the mint in Philadelphia; and the sum of one thousand dollars shall be paid "to the engraver whose workmanship shall appear to have distinguished merit."

A legislated, merit-based bonus! I would definitely support such a plan!

4. The silver needed to strike any of the bill's new coins was to come from "fractional silver" already in the Treasury's inventory vs. new monthly market purchases - as required by the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 - for the silver needed for striking the mandated Silver Dollar coinage.

The bill was heavily amended by the Committee on Finance, however, with the provisions for a metric system based coinage, the proposed changes to the one-cent and five-cent coins and the annual bonus for outstanding medal design/execution all removed from the bill before the updated version was passed by the Senate.

Only the provisions for the temporary hiring of staff to conduct a coinage review and the consolidated Report to Congress survived. The payment to those conducting the review, however, was dropped to $2,000 (vs. the original $2,500) and the "artist" title was removed from the potential hiring list so as not to have such a specification dominate/restrict the hires. The bill didn't survive past the Senate.


For other of my posts about US and World coins and medals (though mostly US and/or Canada), see: Commems Collection