Leigh H. asks: Why do we call pennies, nickels, and dimes those names?
Prior to the United States minting their own coins, it relied on foreign currency.
However, that all changed with the passing of the Coinage Act of 1792, which provided
the framework for regulating money produced in the United States, as well as established
the United States Mint.
A little over a month after the passing of the Coinage Act, An Act to Provide for a Copper
Coinage was signed into law and the first official U.S. minted currency was slated to
be created.
Among the forms of currency to make up the U.S. monetary system was the copper cent and
the half cent, first minted in 1793.
Besides being called by that name, the cent also retained the name penny, borrowed from
the name for Britain's penny which had previously been commonly circulated in the country.
As for the British penny, it got its name from the Old English penning, which in turn
is thought to derive from the German pfennig.
As for the nickel, this term has not always been the name for the United States' five-cent
coin.
You see, the half disme (pronounced like dime), as it was originally referred to, wasn't made
of nickel.
Like the ten-cent coin, the half dime was made of silver and weighed exactly half of
the dime, hence half the value.
During the Civil War, many metals were needed to support war efforts, resulting in the majority
of coins going out of circulation, including the half dime.
After the war, a new type of five-cent piece was introduced, one made of a copper and nickel
alloy rather than silver.
It wasn't until 1883, after intense lobbying efforts by industrialist Joseph Wharton, that
the nickel alloy caught on, replacing the half dime and becoming widely circulated as
the "nickel," named after the metal by which it was made.
Moving on to the dime, this was technically the first coin made by the United States Mint,
but using a borrowed coin machine four years before a Mint building was constructed.
However, this dime, or disme as it was originally spelled, was not circulated and the first
dime produced by the Mint to be used by the public wasn't produced until 1796.
As for the name, dime ultimately derives from the Latin word "decimus," which means "one-tenth."
The term disme was used by the French to indicate a monetary value of tenth, and eventually
the 's' in the name for the coin was dropped to become dime.
Following suit with the dime, the quarter, which was first produced by the Mint in 1796,
received its name to indicate its monetary worth as a quarter of a dollar.
This was a slightly unusual choice, as using a 1/5 denomination was more common in many
currencies.
However, at the time the Spanish dollar or peso (equal to 8 reales, thus "pieces of eight")
was widely circulated in the United States.
In large part due to this, and perhaps further thumbing their noses a bit at the British,
the U.S. chose to design the U.S. dollar to duplicate the Spanish coins, in terms of matching
the material and weight, hence value (at the time, the coins were made of silver and valued
after the price of silver).
Doing this allowed the U.S. coin to be exchanged for the widely circulated Spanish dollar in
a 1 to 1 exchange, which was particularly beneficial for international trade and during
the transition from foreign currencies to United States minted.
(For instance, due to shortages of gold and silver, the U.S. was seamlessly able to extend
legal tender status to the Spanish dollar in the late 18th century, something that wasn't
taken away until the mid-19th century.)
Thus, a 1/4 denomination was chosen, instead of a 1/5, to equal two Spanish reales, colloquially
known as two-bits, hence why an alternate name for the quarter in the United States
was two-bits.
The name dollar derives from the word thaler which is an abbreviation for the word Joachimsthaler,
a coin type made from silver mined near Joachimsthal (literally "Joachim's dale") in Bohemia, first
minted in 1519.
Eventually the mouthful of a name, Joachimsthaler, was shortened to just "thaler," and, most
notably for the topic at hand, ultimately lent its name to the Spanish pieces of eight,
also called the Spanish dollar.
As the U.S. dollar was modeled after the pieces of eight, it was natural enough to borrow
dollar from the colloquial name for the Spanish currency.
As for how the dollar ultimately became known as a “buck”, one of the earliest references
of this was in 1748, about 44 years before the first U.S. dollar was minted, where there
is a reference to the exchange rate for a cask of whiskey traded to Native Americans
being “5 bucks”, referring to deerskins.
In yet another documented reference from 1748, Conrad Weiser, while traveling through present
day Ohio, noted in his journal that someone had been “robbed of the value of 300 Bucks.”
At this time, a buck skin was a common medium of exchange.
There is also evidence that a “buck” didn’t simply mean one deerskin, but may have meant
multiple skins, depending on quality.
For instance, skins from deer killed in the winter were considered superior to those killed
in the summer, due to the fur being thicker.
It is thought that the highest quality skins were generally assigned a one to one value
with one skin equaling one buck.
In contrast, for lower quality skins, it might take several of them to be valued at a single
buck.
The specific value for given sets of skins was then set at trading.
In addition, when the skin was from another animal, the number of skins required to equal
a buck varied based on the animal and the quality of the skins.
For instance, there is one documented trade where six high quality beaver skins or twelve
high quality rabbit pelts each equaled one buck.
This use of skins as a medium of exchange gradually died off over the next century as
more and more Europeans moved in and built towns and cities.
Once the U.S. dollar was officially introduced after the passing of the Coinage Act of 1792,
it quickly became the leading item used as a medium of exchange, but the term “buck”
stuck around and by the mid-nineteenth century was being used as a slang term for the dollar.
Bonus Facts: Ever wonder where the expression “dollars
to doughnuts” comes from?
Well, wonder no more- "Dollars for doughnuts," or alternatively "dollars to doughnuts," meaning
a "safe bet," or a "sure thing," seems to have first popped up, at least in its documented
form, in a February 6, 1876 edition of the Daily Nevada State Journal:
“Whenever you hear any resident of a community attempting to decry the local paper . . . it's
dollars to doughnuts that such a person is either mad at the editor or is owing the office
for subscription or advertising.”
It again appeared in that same newspaper a little over a month later on March 11, 1876
where it stated, "Several Benoites took advantage of the half fare tickets offered to those
who were to attend the ball given by the railroad boys at Carson last night, and attended it.
It’s dollars to doughnuts all enjoyed themselves."
Given that the newspaper used the expression without explaining it or otherwise giving
emphasis, it is likely the author felt that people would already be familiar with the
phrase, so it had probably been around in slang for at least a few years up to this
point, if not longer.
As to why "dollars to doughnuts," beyond the alliterative qualities, it was essentially
just a way to say you'd bet dollars to something mostly worthless, relative to the dollars,
emphasizing how sure you are that you're correct.
Going back to the 1840s, there was a very similar expression with the same basic meaning
"dollars to dimes."
Two other similar expressions also existed in the 1880s "dollars to dumplings" and "dollars
to buttons."
A couple decades later, "dollars to cobwebs" also popped up, but none of these had the
staying power as "dollars to doughnuts."
In all cases, the latter thing is the worthless item relative to the value of the dollars,
but you're so sure about what you're saying, you'll happily bet your dollars to someone
else's doughnuts over the matter.
• The original face of the U.S. penny symbolized liberty in the form of a woman with flowing
hair.
It wasn’t until 1909 that this image was replaced with the bust of Abraham Lincoln
to commemorate the fallen president's 100th birthday.
• The Thomas Jefferson Nickels were first minted in 1938.
The design for these five-cent pieces resulted from a contest held by the United States Mint,
the reward being $1,000.
Out of the 390 contestants, the winner with the best design was Felix Schlag, a German
immigrant who had only been a United States citizen for nine years.
As part of his design for the Jefferson nickel, Felix Schlag chose to depict Thomas Jefferson’s
Virginia home, the Monticello.
Jefferson designed the building himself and construction took 55 years to complete.
• Unlike the design of the nickel, which was chosen as the result of a contest, the
obverse design of the dime that we know today was an intentional act to honor President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his efforts with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis,
or March of Dimes, which he established when he was stricken with polio in the 1920s.
Wanting to do Roosevelt justice, engraver John R. Sinnock was granted the honor of designing
the dime due to how he captured President Roosevelt on a previous medal he had worked
on.
• The original designs of the dime and quarter did not include ridges around the circumference.
When the United States started minting coins, these two coins were among those made with
the precious metals silver and gold.
Individuals trying to beat the system for profit would file the edges off the coins,
to later combine the metal dust to form additional coins.
Even though these coins are now made with cheaper metals, the ridged circumferences
are still used today.
The quarter has 119 ridges and the dime has 118 ridges around its edge.
• Not wanting even the smallest suggestion of a tyrannical mindset to be associated with
his presidency, George Washington refused the honor of having his visage on U.S. currency.
Later on, the tradition that was born out of this became an actual federal law, stating
not only that living presidents could not be featured on money, but that a president
had to be dead for at least two years before his portrait could be minted on U.S. currency.
• The average life of most coins is 25 years, whereas, the lifespan for the average dollar
is only 18 months, leading some to push hard for a switch from paper dollars to coins,
with no real luck.
When coins become too old and worn to be in circulation, the United States Mint recycles
them and any usable metal from these coins is turned into coinage strips for new coins.