What Is The Difference Between A Half Dime And A Nickel?

5 cents, but made of silver and proportional in weight (ie half the weight) of a dime

...but worth a bit more than that now.

Fox,
My sister, in all sincerity, asked me, "Why don't you just call that tiny coin a nickel?"
Well, "Nickel" refers to the metal of which the coin was made.
"Dime" and "Half-Dime" were terms used to describe the minor fractions of the Dollar, which
was based upon a decimal system and not the British system. You can thank Thomas Jefferson
for his efforts to go decimal.
"Just another five cent piece?" A good description, Fox, with the slight addition:
the five cent nickel co-circulated and eventually replaced the earlier five cent silver piece.

Earliest year of issue for the Half Dime - 1794.
Earliest year of the Shield nickel - 1866.

Yes, the origin of "disme" is from old French vis old English, meaning a 'tenth'. The U.S. minted a half-disme in 1792.

Not a lot of room on a Dime so something had to go. If it was the D, you would have Isme. If it was the E, you'ld have a Dism. The M would leave Dise. So it just had to be the S or make the thing bigger.
It is interesting that Nickels were started in 1866 and yet the Half Dime was still being made in 1873.

The nickel was intended to be a temporary coinage with the silver coin eventually returning to general circulation so the Half Dime was not legislated out of existence at that time. But the nickel was popular with the public, it was larger and easier to handle and less likely to get lost than the tiny Half Dime. Well the public liked it, and the government made a bigger profit from seigniorage on the nickel than they did on the Half Dime so they had no problem letting the public have what they wanted.



True, the term "nickel" originally referred to the coppernickel Flying Eagle cent. They were called "nickels" or "nicks".

I've heard it, but I have also heard the term used to mean the Canadian silver five cent piece and the US silver Three Cent piece.

Aye the only difference was metal backing its value. Like 3 cent pieces which were both struck in silver and nickel (and for a while circulating side by side), so were the Half Disme and 5 cent nickel.