For being a country on the leading edge of modernity, America has a fascination with history. Bookstore shelves are lined with volumes about the great events of the past, museums draw crowds with exhibitions of historic artifacts, and an entire TV channel is devoted to history, in addition to all the history-oriented programming available on [...]

Today, it is believed that the first coins were bronze and used in China around 800-1,000BC. Lydia in Asia Minor used coins about 600-700 BC. The Lydian’s coins were called “starters” which was a unit of weight. Starters were stamped with a lion’s head image and made with a gold and silver alloy. Today, as [...]

There’s something about coins that fascinates people everywhere; perhaps it is because each one carries a valuable piece of history with it, maybe it is the ancient and antique artwork that attracts some collectors, and let us not leave out the fact that part of the reason that many collect coins is because a coin [...]

There have many different pennies over the years, since the term implies a one-cent piece.  But American pennies are the most popular among collectors today, and that is what we will be focusing on here.  This one-cent coin was the first authorized form of currency in the U.S., and its name was derived from the [...]

Our ten-cent piece, the dime, was first authorized in 1792, the year that the U.S. adopted the decimal system of coinage, and in 1796 production began.  The word “dime” was derived from the old French word “disme,” meaning “tenth part” or “tithe.” The dime’s composition consisted of 89.24 percent silver and 10.76 percent copper until [...]

Due to the Mint Act of April 2, 1792, which stated that certain coins had to have an image that represented liberty along with the word “liberty” and on the other side an eagle and the term “The United States of America,” the quarter’s design was specified.  For the first 115 years of the quarter’s [...]

Before the nickel was introduced, small silver coins called half-dimes were used as five-cent pieces.  After America was first discovered by Europeans, silver was plentiful so many American coins were made of silver, until the American Civil War when silver became scarce.  From this point on (and to this day) five-cent pieces were made with [...]