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 Replies: 12 / Views: 1,396 |
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New Member
United States
12 Posts |
I was using an online calculator to see how many ounces of silver was in each of the 90% silver coins and found a strange ( more silver content per dollar ) in one silver dollar than 2 Half Dollars, or 4 Quarters, or 10 Dimes that are also 90% silver. Anyone know why silver dollars contain 0.77344 troy ounces and all other coins that are 90% to add up to $1.00 face only add up to 0.72338 troy ounces? Here is online calculator I was using, also tried another and got same results: http://www.coinnews.net/tools/autom...in-valuator/ |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4897 Posts |
 To CCF! I will quote Sap (you will learn to trust anything he posts)... Quote:
It's all to do with seigniorage - the difference between a coin's face value and the cost that went in to making it (total costs, which include refining and assaying the metal, making the dies and making the blanks, and labour costs), which is booked as profit earned by the government. And it's not that the dollar is "too heavy", rather it's all the other coins that are "too light".
If you've got a "dollar's worth of silver" to be turned into coins, it costs more to make four quarters or ten dimes out of it than it costs to make a single large dollar - more blanks need to be punched out, more time on the coin press, more dies need to be made, more labour costs. To make up this extra cost (and to keep the production of the smaller coins profitable), smaller coins contain slightly less silver than the larger coins compared to what they "should have".
In the Latin Monetary Union coinage standard (used by most of continental Europe prior to World War I), we see the same effect, although there it is the fineness of the largest coin that is higher, rather than the weight - a large 5 francs coin weighs exactly the same as five small 1 franc coins, but the 5 franc coin is .900 fine silver, while the 1 franc coins are only .835 fine. From this old thread.... https://goccf.com/t/92055 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7390 Posts |
Wow, sap just completely answered this thread and didn't even know it  Nice pull amida, I learned something new that I didn't even know I didn't know Good first question Goldfist... Welcome! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4897 Posts |
@Cascade.....  I figured....Why try to reinvent perfection? |
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New Member
 United States
12 Posts |
Thank You for the fast and thorough answer to this. Also thanks for welcoming me.  Makes sense. Surprised that the silver content isn't proportional such as the cost to make 10 dimes is greater than 4 quarters so being that dimes cost more to produce 10 of vs 4 quarters, dimes should for a linear fit of proportion of silver in relation to cost associated with production weigh even less. Digging further there is a strange disproportion in WarTime Nickels 1942-1945 where the nickels are silver heavy.. 10 cents in wartime nickels straight out of the mint without wear would contain around 0.11252 troy ounces, whereas the dimes minted of those same years only contained about 0.07234 troy ounces, and the nickels are more costly to produce than a single dime. But we all know that the nickel was needed during WW2, so they had to make nickels and I suppose silver mixed with other metals like magnesium was the best substitute as for a steel nickel probably would have shattered dies. Its amazing that the dies held up to the penny pressing zinc plated steel knock outs. I have seen with older US coins where weights were changed to reduce silver content such as in the liberty Seated quarters with arrows 1853 to 1855 when prior to 1853 the coins were worth more in silver than face and were reduced in weight to try to put a stop to people melting them for a profit on newly minted coins. More info here: http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Hierar...+Rays+(1853)The best thing about Numismatics is that even after many years of research, study, and collecting, there always seems to be something new to learn about or some hidden fact that went missed while reading up on other subjects within numismatics.  Edited by Goldfist
04/28/2015 3:22 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
I've never understood why the manganese-silver composition 5¢ pieces were issued during the Second World War, in place of half-dimes. A little history : under the first US Mint Act, the divisional silver coins were exact fractions of the weight of a dollar, and unlimited legal tender. At the time, however, US silver formed little of the coin in circulation, and people had a tendency to take the nice new heavy US coins out of circulation, & substitute Spanish colonial coins which were equally legal tender, although mostly worth less on account of being worn. This is what led President Jefferson to suspend the coinage of the dollar. The half-dollars and quarters, however, suffered equally, and the failure to replace the Spanish coins with US ones undoubtedly made the adoption of the decimal system more difficult and slower. The Act of 1837 continued the divisional coins as simple fractions of the unit, but changed the proportion between gold and silver, with the intent of keeping gold in the US to provide a high-value circulating medium. This had the result, again, of making it profitable to remove the silver from circulation. The first "subsidiary" coin, containing less silver than the corresponding fraction of the dollar, was the three-cent piece, authorized in 1851. The proportion of silver was reduced in order to keep it in circulation, and its legal tender powr was limited to thirty cents, or ten pieces. The Coinage Act of 1853 made the half-dollar, quarter-dollar, dime, and half-dime subsidiary, reducing the weight of the half-dollar from 206.25 to 192 grains, or 7%, the other pieces in proportion, and limiting their legal tender power to $5. At this time the coinage of subsidiary silver pieces was limited, so that private individuals could not bring silver to the mint to be coined into anything except dollars (which were still worth more as metal than as coin). It was restricted to the US Treasury. It was left for the Act of 1857 to end the currency of non-US coins, thus ensuring that US coins would make up the circulating medium. Of course, soon after came the Civil War, which took coins out of circulation generally. With the post-war resumption of silver coinage, the Act of 1873 changed the weights of the subsidiary silver fractionally, to place them on the metric system, the half dollar becoming 12.5 grams or just the half of the five-franc piece, and the other divisions in proportion. After that no substantive alteration was made until 1965. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
4078 Posts |
Quote:
I will quote Sap (you will learn to trust anything he posts)...  Sure there may be a better source of information but, we all need to learn. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
589 Posts |
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I've never understood why the manganese-silver composition 5¢ pieces were issued during the Second World War, in place of half-dimes. Perhaps since true Half Dimes had been obsolete for half a century. As far as why nickels had more silver in them, the weight of all Jefferson's (pre-war, war, and post-war) is the same at 5.00 grams. The War Nickels had reduced copper and no nickel, so in order to make up for the crucial metals removed that were needed for the war effort, and in order to maintain the same weight, more silver than what "should" have been used was used. I believe I read somewhere that the large mint mark on the War Nickels was added so that if they wished to recall them after the war was over, the coins would be easier to identify; in a similar fashion to the ease of recall of steel cents. But I don't believe a War Nickel recall was ever enacted. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
The thing is, the copper-silver-manganese alloy was AWFUL.
Black, slick, et cetera.
The only other coinage alloy I can think of containing manganese would be the one in the "golden dollars", and that looks like garbage pretty soon after entering circulation too.
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Quote:
The only other coinage alloy I can think of containing manganese would be the one in the "golden dollars", and that looks like garbage pretty soon after entering circulation too.
The inspiration behind the Zlincoln. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
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I've never understood why the manganese-silver composition 5¢ pieces were issued during the Second World War, in place of half-dimes. Reissuance of Half Dimes was suggested but there was the problem that all of the vending machines were designed for nickels and Half Dimes would not work. Not to mention the inconvenience of using Half Dimes. Those things are SMALL. A bit more history about why the coins are not in proportion to the dollar coin. After the gold discoveries in California in 1849 the value of silver with respect to gold began to rise. By 1851 the metal in the silver coins exceeded the face value of the coins. In 1853 the weights of the dime, quarter, and half were reduced by an amount sufficient to bring them back below their face value and their legal tender status was reduced from unlimited to just $5, making them subsidiary coins. But the officials were not ready to abandon the idea of bimetallism and to reduce the weight of the silver dollar which was the "official" definition of the dollar. So the silver dollar weight was not reduced and it retained its unlimited legal tender status. Unfortunately this meant that it now had about $1.04 worth of silver in it which effectively ended any chance that it would continue as a circulating coin. (I believe that from 1840 to 1851 the silver dollar probably DID circulate freely. It was a significant amount of money, and given a choice between a heavy coin of good solid value, or lightweight paper of questionable or widely varying value that could be worthless tomorrow, people would take the coin whenever possible. Remember there was no Federal paper money until 1862 just private banknotes.) |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
In terms of the silver dollar, it's always worth remembering that the US struck more of them in the first year of the Bland-Allison Act than in all the previous years since the first Mint Act added together.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
And in 1979 they struck more SBA's than all the silver dollars previously struck since the first mint act of 1792 too. |
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Replies: 12 / Views: 1,396 |
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Posted 04/28/2015 2:12 pm
