Really small change

I meant to pick this up sooner but better late than never.  Take a look at this:

That's a two-cent piece.  They were minted in the U. S. from 1864 through 1873.  They came into being because coins were not circulating during the Civil War because of the scarcity of the metals they were made of.  The U. S. Mint was running critically short of nickel and because of this, and the fact the lobbies for copper miners and nickel miners fought a battle in Congress and the copper miners won, the decision was made to make the two cent piece out of bronze.  The alloy was a mix of 95% copper and 5% tin and zinc.

But before there were two cent pieces, there was a three cent piece.  The first was made from silver.

What made this coin, first issued in 1851 unique is that for the first time, the U. S. Mint was issuing a coin that had a face value lower than that of the metal content of the coin.  They did this by taking .900 fine silver and reducing it to .750 fine.  That's a complicated way of saying these coins were only three parts silver and one part copper, as opposed to being nine parts silver and one part copper.

Another fact that makes this coin's history interesting is that postage was also made three cents by the law that authorized the issuance of this coin.  So there was a coin that was of the same value as the price of a postage stamp.

Ultimately the metal mixture was changed back to .900 fine and the mint stopped making them in 1873.

That's because eight years earlier, in 1865, the mint started issuing the same denomination coin but in an alloy that was primarily nickel.

Guess the nickel lobby wasn't permanently defeated.  And since the following year would see a five cent piece, also made of nickel, maybe they won that particular war with the copper lobby.  Next blog on coins will be on the origin of the nickel and its predecessor, the half-dime.