Why do some U.S. coins have edge reeds and others do not?
Insider2
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I was asked this by a friend. I have an idea but want to know what the experts think.
Thanks
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Usually reeding applied to the edge to discourage shaving of the edge. Every U.S. Silver and gold coin has a lettered or reeded edge, except the tiny Three Cent Piece, which was too thin, and Twenty Cent Piece, which was made different in a failed attempt to differentiate it from the quarter.
The general assumption is that the base metal coins are not prone shaving. The exceptions are the early half cents and large cents which lettered edges until their weights were reduced at the very end of 1795.
The edge reeds, if I can remember my coin history lessons from dealers in the 1970s, were placed on high value (i.e., gold & silver) coins to prevent unscrupulous people from shaving small amounts of metal from the rims... over many coins, these shavings could be worth a considerable amount. The reeding made it easier to tell that such shaving had occurred.
Edited to add: what @BillJones said. ;-)
Wasn't it to prevent, or at least discourage, filing the edge for the precious metal that it could produced? File enough coins and you could get a nice pile of gold or silver dust.
As stated several times above, the popular information has been, that the reeds were justified to prevent metal theft through shaving. Cheers, RickO
Agree with the above, What we have today is carried over from the clad coins' historical predecessors.
When a nation (or monetary authority, as the case may be) completely redesigns their coinage without any historical precedence or connection to the new coins, edge configuration can serve to help differentiate between denominations. The euro coins are the prime example.
To follow on what @JBK noted, I believe that our current coins were reviewed after passage of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities act) and deemed in compliance because of the four most common similarly-sized coins (cent/dime & nickel/quarter), the reeding on the dime & quarter helped differentiate from cent & nickel by a sight-impaired person.
Edited to add: our currency was deemed out of compliance with ADA, because they are all the same size. Although not willing to change that, the government added the big denomination numerals on everything but the $1 and $2 in response, and have the security thread in a different location on each.
Can a blind person read the numerials on a credit card so the right account gets debided for a purchase?
The origin of the term "chiseler": http://www.weirdwords.com/2010/03/04/chiseler/
Interesting background - makes sense.
I might only disagree with one point - I think (not sure) the security thread locations were varied not for the benefit of the vision impaired but rather to help prevent situations where forgers would bleach lower denomination notes and then use the genuine paper to print larger denomination notes. (The security threads also glow a different color from denomination to denomination).
@JBK - I believe you are right that the threads were initially intended as an anti-counterfeiting device, but found to also be useful to distinguish if you are sight-impaired. Apparently, the next generation of notes will also have raised cues (similar to Braille) to other countries' notes.
Check out this webpage - until just Googling this, didn't know that this much planning was going on ;-) . Currency-project-for-blind-and-visually-impaired-persons
This and if you submit a coin and it comes back rims filed, a reputable dealer should take it back and refund your money.
to keep them from slipping out of hand when held properly by the edges.
If you understand what is coming, then you can duck. If not, then you get sucker-punched. - Martin Armstrong
To expand why the earliest copper coins had edge devices, one of the perceived problems the first Mint faced was get people to accept the copper coins at their full face value. The country had been flooded with light weight coppers in the 1780s. The Fugio Cents had failed because they were too light.
The Silver Center and "fusion" Cents were an attempt to make those coins have an intrinsic value of one cent. Finally when the coins were issued, they had look like they had a cent's worth of copper in them, even though they didn't. Hence the edge devices despite the fact that copper was not considered to be a precious metal. Shortly after they were introduced the "vines and bars" edge was replaced with the value of the piece.
The real nonreason for reeding is this:
All US coins once had reeded edges. But so many cents and nickels are made that the work, which is performed by contractors, has gotten sloppy and the reeding is not tightly stuck to these small denomination coins. The work is so bad that hardly any get out of the mints with their reeding intact - it simply falls off 'cause cheap glue is used. So nearly all cents and nickels have plain edges. A bunch with reeding were found in about 1942, but they are now collectors' items.
Many early US coins had other things on the edge. Most of these were telephone numbers or addresses, but some were advertisements such as "One hundred for a dollar" which was for 'penny peppermint sticks.'
Remember the old adage: "A peppermint stick for your thoughts!"