Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
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Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
In 1857 the U.S. went from the big (27.5mm, 10.89 gram) copper cent to the small (19mm, 4.67 gram) cent, which, because it contained 12% nickel, was a whiter color than the old coins. Americans quickly began calling the new small cents “nickels.” These “nickels,” or “nicks,” were replaced by bronze cents in 1864…
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
In 1865, in a response to the coin shortage caused by the American Civil War, a copper-nickel 3-cent piece was introduced. Folks began calling these coins “3-cent nickels” and “nickel 3-cent pieces” to differentiate them from the silver 3-cent piece then also circulating, and because the nickname “nickel” had already been fastened on the “white cents” of 1857-64…
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
A silver half-dime (5-cent piece) had been part of the country’s coinage system since the first issues under the 1792 Mint Act, but these small silver coins too had mostly departed circulation during the Civil War. To replace them, a completely new coin was introduced in 1866, a copper-nickel 5-cent piece. The coin soon became popular, and as with popular things, a nickname soon followed. By 1875, these coins were commonly called “5-cent nickels,” and…
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
By the time this 1882 “5-cent nickel” appeared, the nickname had been shortened further and these were America’s “nickels.” (Which lends some irony to the next year’s dust-up with the Cents/No Cents 5-cent piece of 1883.)
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
“Nickels” were an incredibly popular and much-used coin as the century turned, and again, that sort of thing makes itself felt in the language. By the time this 1903 Liberty Head nickel was struck in Philadelphia, America’s 5-cent coin was sometimes called a “jitney.”
According to the 1982 book by Stuart Berg Flexner, Listening to America: “Jitney (French jeton, token, counter, coin) originally meant a coin in the U.S. (a jitney bag was a coin purse), then especially a nickel by 1903. The word, sometimes spelled gitney, seems to have spread from St. Louis and environs, when that area was still mainly French.” And a dozen years later…
According to the 1982 book by Stuart Berg Flexner, Listening to America: “Jitney (French jeton, token, counter, coin) originally meant a coin in the U.S. (a jitney bag was a coin purse), then especially a nickel by 1903. The word, sometimes spelled gitney, seems to have spread from St. Louis and environs, when that area was still mainly French.” And a dozen years later…
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
...in 1915, the year this nickel—this jitney—was coined. Again according to the book Listening to America, jitney “has meant a private car serving a bus-like route since 1915, when jitneys or jitney buses, usually early Ford cars, began to compete with the streetcars in Los Angeles, charging passengers a jitney, a nickel, a ride.”
Zuletzt geändert von villa66 am Do 13.06.13 17:18, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
Nickels were more than the price of a ride in a streetcar or in a new-fangled jitney, of course. In 1915 nickels bought movies, telephone calls, were used as the principal coin in any number of vending machines, and—more or less at random—in 1915 a nickel would buy the Sunday edition of The New York Times. (Today the Sunday Times costs $5 in New York—100 nickels.)
A nickel was also a particular price-point of something else important, as the 5-cent token pictured below suggests: cigars! The date of the token is unknown to me, but my guess is about 1910-1915. If that’s the case, this 5-cent “Good For” from St. Joseph, Missouri, may possibly have been handled by a living witness to one of that town’s most spectacular activities—the Pony Express (c.1860). But cigars…
A nickel was also a particular price-point of something else important, as the 5-cent token pictured below suggests: cigars! The date of the token is unknown to me, but my guess is about 1910-1915. If that’s the case, this 5-cent “Good For” from St. Joseph, Missouri, may possibly have been handled by a living witness to one of that town’s most spectacular activities—the Pony Express (c.1860). But cigars…
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
The American nickels of 1915, from Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco. Representative of the entire country, because that was the year Wilson’s vice-president, Thomas Marshall, gave the U.S. Senate—over which he presided—his famous take on the true state of things: “What this country really needs is a good five-cent cigar.”
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Re: Three American "nickels:" 1857, 1865, 1866
Congrats, villa! I enjoy your contributions very much and I am looking forward to more. I must say that you are unequaled here,
others should follow your example - including myself
Sigi
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others should follow your example - including myself
Sigi
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