Trivia quiz ?

PQpeace

Heard this on the radio the other night...
Neither the host nor the caller really knew the answer.
They fumbled through it for few minutes.

Why is our nickel larger than the dime ?
Who and when was this decided ?

Larry

mnmcoin

Not sure if this is right but it probably has to do with the dime had to be made smaller because it was made with an actally value of silver representing ten cents, and that was pretty small.

morris <><

indianabyron

i think your right . im pretty sure it has to do with the weight of sliver . now the next question why is the nickle the size that it is???



Byron

kranky

Because the dime had silver content (at the time) which approximated 10 cents worth of silver, and the silver half-dimes with only 5 cents worth of silver were too small to be handled easily. So they did away with the silver in the half-dime, made the coin bigger for ease of handling, and used nickel and copper instead.

truthteller

I believe it had to do with intrisic value of the metal. Nickel, at the time of first production, was a valuable and tough metal. Of course, silver was intrinsic in the dime. I believe the ratio of metal value to gold/silver governed the size of the nickel.

TRUTH

EVillageProwler

MNMCOIN is correct.

Way back in time, up to 1865 I believe, all 5c coins of our realm was made of silver. Those pieces had roughly five cents worth of silver, and it was roughly half the size (weight) of the ten cent piece.

In 1866, this country decided to put out a five cent piece that was made of the metal nickel and DENOMINATED to be worth five cents. In other words, the global market value of these specimens wasn't worth much as nickel wasn't then considered a precious metal.

Since this new coin had its value denominated, it need not be half the size of the ten cent piece, which was still made of silver (a precious metal).

I suppose until the 1870's, most folks preferred the silver five cent pieces rather than the nickel five cent pieces.

Nowadays, all U.S. currency is denominated. The one dollar bill is only worth USD $1 because of an act of Congress. Otherwise, it is just expensive and ornate paper! It is no longer backed by silver, gold or any precious metal. And, you cannot go to a bank and redeem it for a silver dollar.

Similar for our current circulating hard currency...

Oddly enough, our SAE's and GAE's are denominated at a value LESS THAN their global market bullion value.

EVP

PQpeace

You guys are fast..and a pretty smart group of people.

Within minutes,I had an answer way more detailed than I thought would happen.
Thanks,Larry