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 Replies: 12 / Views: 2,529 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
595 Posts |
Can someone define minor as it refers to coins? Not minor varieties, minor coins. I suspect it refers to small denominations, but I'm not sure. I saw a reference to a nickel as a minor.
Thanks.
Jan
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Valued Member
United States
256 Posts |
Funny, I've never heard that word used to describe coins.
I guess, I would consider a minor coin the same as a common coin. A coin that years from now will not appreciate much in value and of not much interest to the majority of collectors. The coins you see stuffed into the "cheap" box at the coin show or store many still in the mylar from the mint sets they were cut from. I don't think a person could single out any denomination as being minor because to another collector it could very well be their major interest. Hmm, minor coin. Is there such a thing?
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
595 Posts |
In the most recent issue of Numismatic News, someone wrote in and asked, "Which minor coin was the first with the E PLURIBUS UNUM motto?" The answer was the V nickel. And, on Harlan J. Berk's web site, one of your choices under world coins is "minors." So, I was wondering what that menant exactly. It's not in CCF's glossary, nor any other I've consulted. jk |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
I too have never heard the term of Minor coins used. It is not in the coin vocabulary section on the PCGS web site the last time I looked. And as far as Harlan J. Berk, I put them in the same catagory as Littleton and if you check most coin web sites you'll see what I mean. I live in the area where that place is located and, well that's another story.
There are several web sites on coins where they have coin terminology listed. PCGS is only one of them.
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Moderator
 Australia
16826 Posts |
It's a bit of a vague term, but I've heard it used quite a bit around here. A "minor" is a base-metal coin which is either of small denomination or physically small size or, preferably, both. In the US, the 1¢ and probably the 5¢ are minors. In Australia, the 1¢, 2¢ and 5¢ are minors; the old predecimal penny and halfpenny are probably too large to be classified as such.
I've most commonly seen it used in the phrase "world minors", meaning cheap, small, base-metal world coins.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4589 Posts |
SAP as usuall You are right Minors go hand in hand with world Crowns. Crowns being the dollar for exmaple
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Pillar of the Community
United States
830 Posts |
In the U.K. the term "minor" usually refers to, in pre-decimal coinage, any coin smaller in denomination than the shilling. I would call any U.S. coin below the denomination of a quarter a minor.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3234 Posts |
1-cent, 2-cent, 3-cent, and 5-cent are considered minor coins in 19th century Mint terms.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
595 Posts |
So which category does the Half Dime belong in? Or the 3-cent silver either, for that matter? Or should we just agree it's a vague term and let it go? Yeah, I'm for that.  Thanks for your replies, everyone. Jan |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
HMMMM. A Half Dime could be half Minor and half Major. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1247 Posts |
CoinWorld Almanac sayth thusly: "A silver coin of less than crown weight, or any coin struck in base metal."
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Pillar of the Community
United States
595 Posts |
And thus spake Longnine. OK.
Carl -- you do crack me up sometimes.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
In the US Minor coins are the base metal coins of value below 10 cents. That was how they were separated in the 19th century. Since they were silver the Three Cent Silver and Half Dime were not considered to be minor coins. In the 1880s the mint offered proof sets of the "Minor coins" that included the 1, 3, and five cent pieces for 15 cents a set. After 1873 the silver coins of less than a dollar were known as subsidiary coins because they contained less silver per dollar face than was in the silver dollar. Before 1873 they were were fractional coins rather than subsidiary because they had the same silver weight by proportion. |
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Replies: 12 / Views: 2,529 |
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Posted 03/08/2007 5:54 pm
