Archive for October, 2009
The Value of American Coins Can be Confusing for Non-Americans
In the United States, we can understand the Value of American Coins of recent minting and know exactly what they are worth just by glancing at them. But for people who don’t live in the United States, the Value of American Coins can be very confusing. With terms like cent, penny, nickle (or nickel), dime or quarter having no real unit of measure it is easy to understand why American Coins are very tough to value for people who don’t handle them every day.
Looking at a penny or cent gives no clue to the value of a coin compared to a dollar. In fact, a penny doesn’t really exist if you look at the coin itself! The name given to a penny on the coin is “one cent”. The official U.S. Treasury name is “one cent piece”. It is likely that the penny derived its name from the term pence, a coin minted in many parts of the world. One cent, or a penny, is worth 1/100th of a US dollar.
The next higher Value of American Coins is commonly called a nickle (or nickel). Again, there is no place on the coin that the word “nickle” appears, making this coin as confusing as a penny. A nickle is worth five cents — the term the mint imprints on the coin — or 1/20th of a US dollar. Many people think the nickle was named that because it was a five-cent piece made of the alloy Nickel, but this is not the case. In fact, Indian Head cents used to be referred to as nickles (or nicks). After that, there was a 3-cent coin that was commonly referred to as a nickle by the people at that time.
Next in the order of Value of American Coins is the dime. With the dime, the United States has finally come to its senses, since the dime is actually called “one dime” on the coin itself. Unfortunately, the term “one dime” doesn’t mean much in comparison to the US dollar. A dime is worth ten cents, or 1/10th of a US dollar. The dime is the smallest minted coin in circulation in the United States. It is also the lowest denomination coin with a reeded (or fluted) edge. This was originally done to discourage people from sanding down the edges of coins to save the silver dust, but is now used as an aid to the blind — making it easy to differentiate a dime from a cent.
The quarter, as it is commonly called, is imprinted at the mint as “quarter dollar” making it one of the easiest American Coins for many non-Americans to place a value on in relation to the US dollar. The quarter is worth 25 cents, or 1/4th of a US dollar. It also has reeding (or fluting) around the outside edge to aid the blind in telling a quarter from a nickel, since both are similar in size. Making the quarter have a value of 25 cents instead of 20 cents (as would be typical in countries using the metric system) was due to the splitting of coins in early days. A dollar coin would be cut in half, then in half again (into quarters), then in half again (into eighths, or “bits”). If you’ve heard the term “two bits”, this is where it came from.
The half-dollar, or 50-cent piece, is a coin that is seldom found in circulation today. That being said, it is the most consistently minted coin in the United States (with the exception of the one-cent coin), having been minted nearly every year since 1794. The half-dollar, with the exception of the one-dollar coin, is the easiest of the American Coins for non-Americans to place a value on. The half-dollar is worth 50 cents, or 1/2 of a US dollar. The largest user of half-dollar coins today is the gambling industry who uses them to pay off or collect wagers in 50-cent increments. Having a coin as uniquely sized as the half-dollar makes it easy for surveillance videos to see what the wager or payoff was.
As is probably true of most countries’ coinage, older or limited mintings of any coin increment can be worth far more than the face value. Using a book that defines the Value of American Coins can aid a collector in valuing their collection at the true worth as opposed to the face value.
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American Coins Targeted in Montville, NJ Theft
Here’s why you need to keep you collection private and safe…
MONTVILLE — Rare coins estimated to be worth millions of dollars were stolen from the car of a renowned Maryland dealer when he stopped in Pine Brook for dinner on his way home from a coin show.
Julian Leidman left the Coinfest coin show in Stamford, Conn., late Sunday with his wife and traveled to his brother-in-law’s home in Pine Brook, where they stopped for dinner at Tiffany’s on Route 46.
After more than an hour, Leidman said, the group left the restaurant to find a “terrible” sight: Glass littered the ground around his 2009 Toyota Sienna, which he had strategically parked in front of the restaurant so he could keep an eye on the driver’s side and rear, he said. The passenger-side window had been smashed and four bags, three of which were heavier than 50 pounds, were missing from the cargo hold.
Gone were the contents of two of the bags — a cache of valuable coins and collectible currency that Leidman, 63, of Silver Spring, Md., had displayed at the show.
The inventory included individual pieces valued as high as $160,000, as well as many extremely rare and unusual coins and currency dating to the Colonial era, he said.
“It was a huge amount, seven figures,” Leidman said, enumerating the loss. “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” [more...]