Coin Monday: Odd as a $3 bill… or coin…

June 8, 2009
Posted by John Dale

Several of the so-called “odd denominations” that appeared in U.S. coinage during the 19th century, such as the two cent piece and the 20 cent piece, went from first year to finished in less than a decade. Others lasted longer, thanks to their initial usefulness, such as the three cent coin, which was struck in both silver and nickel. One odd denomination is memorable for how it managed to hang on for more than three decades, with coins coming out in tiny trickles each year long after it had outlived its usefulness: The $3 gold piece.

Though the $3 gold piece was created in 1854 and essentially stopped circulating at the onset of the Civil War, the denomination was produced through 1889, with only a law passed in 1890 stopping the madness.

Why was the $3 gold piece allowed to go on so long, even after it became meaningless as a circulating coin? In the most general terms, once a denomination has been created by law, it stays on the books and in production until it is later repealed. Thus, the two cent piece and the three cent piece in silver vanished together, due to their omission from the Act of February 12, 1873 (popularly known as the “Crime of ‘73”), which specified that coinage denominations not specifically listed could not be produced for the United States by the various mints. The 20 cent piece, created by its own law in 1875, was similarly struck down by a laser-focused law in 1878. Despite lack of interest in the $3 dollar gold piece that was evident even in 1873, when the Mint coined just 4,250 of the pieces for circulation, its status as a coin of the realm was reaffirmed that year. It was not until the Act of September 26, 1890, a “clean-up” act of sorts, that the three dollar gold piece, the three cent piece in nickel, and the gold dollar were purged from the books.

For that matter, why was the $3 gold piece created in the first place? There was already a gold coin of similar size, the quarter eagle (equal to two-and-a-half dollars), and the general public in the 19th century found about as many uses for the coins as collectors have today; that is to say, next-to-none. An often-floated idea is that the coins were intended to help customers buy sheets of 100 stamps (postage for a letter being three cents at the time), but stamp-buying as a reason for being seems too narrow. Paradoxically, the $3 gold piece enjoyed its greatest popularity in its last decade, when speculators and gift-givers snapped up the small quantity minted each year; even while it was still around, the denomination was regarded as a curiosity!

Still, both speculators and those who received the coins as gifts saved them, and as a result, low-mintage issues such as the 1889 are available in Mint State today. As our Summer FUN auction continues to grow, look for this and other examples of the three dollar gold piece, among the oddest of the odd denominations.

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: A dime worthy of Dali

June 1, 2009
Posted by John Dale

In past Coin Monday posts, I’ve made clear my love for error coins. They fascinate me, both for what they can teach about the minting process and for the mildly transgressive charm of their blatant imperfections (A coin-as-humorous-gift that I’ve been waiting to spring on someone is an inexpensive error coin, paired with a handwritten note that reads “Nobody’s perfect.”). I was cataloging recently for Heritage’s July Summer FUN auction when I came across a small batch of error coins. One in particular stood out: a 1918-dated dime brockage.

As dramatic as other errors might be, few are as surreal as the brockage; one side is perfectly normal, but the other side is a mirror image of the first, with the features sunk into the coin instead of raised and the lettering reversed. A brockage results from a glitch in striking. In the modern minting process, a blank planchet is fed between two dies, one lower die or anvil die that does not move, and one upper die or hammer die that is raised and lowered. (The terms anvil and hammer are holdovers from the time when coins were made by hand. A heated planchet was placed on the lower die, the upper die went on top of the planchet, and the broad top surface of the upper die was struck with a mallet or hammer.)

Normally, a planchet goes between the two dies, receives an impression, and then the newly minted coin is ejected to make room for the next planchet. Rarely, though, a newly minted coin sticks to one of the dies. When the next planchet comes in, instead of being struck by two dies, it gets its design from one die and one coin. The coin-as-die is in positive relief, so it gives the planchet a negative impression, and since the coin-as-die shows the side opposite that of the die to which it is stuck, the brockage side of the error mirrors the normal image.

In the case of this 1918 brockage dime, a coin stuck to the reverse die, and this piece was then struck with the obverse die, which created the normal impression, and the obverse of the coin-as-die, which is responsible for the mirror image. Both sides are well-centered and show sharp impressions of Miss Liberty but relatively weak letters and numbers; interestingly enough, the word LIBERTY and the date are more clearly defined on the brockage side. Though this dime is dated (twice!), the mintmark is missing, and where this error was made remains a mystery. Its absence, however, will hardly dampen error collectors’ enthusiasm for this double-headed treat. It’s just the beginning of what promises to be a great Summer FUN auction.

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Friday: “Big Money”

May 29
Posted by John Dale

(Is it Friday already? What? Who am I? What am I doing here?... yes, it’s been one of those kinds of weeks, with the holiday at the beginning bringing it commensurate respite from labor that always has to be made up on the back end. It doesn’t get any more back end than Friday, so John Dale – always the valiant blogger – has volunteered to anchor the weekend with another of his coin posts… If he keeps this up I’ll just have to reserve Monday and Friday as coin days for our young numismatist… Today he tackles a rather humorous subject in terms of coins, and yes coins can be humorous. Just read on and you’ll see… and have a good weekend. My thanks to John Dale. – Noah Fleisher)

For more than 60 years, the highest denomination of U.S. currency printed has been the $100 bill, and despite the presence of larger notes in other denominations (such as the $500 note), the Treasury department has no plans to print anything higher. Interestingly, the largest coin struck by the United States also bears the $100 denomination: the one-ounce platinum American Eagle, represented by this 2007-dated proof specimen in our upcoming July 8-12 Summer FUN auction.

This status is subject to a couple of caveats: The first is the possibility that 2008 was the last year for the denomination. While all fractional platinum American Eagles and the uncirculated-finish one-ounce piece were discontinued after 2008, the proof one-ounce platinum American Eagle was spared, and though a release date has not been announced, I’ll mark $100 down as a “dead” coinage denomination only if I see an official statement about its cancellation or if none are minted before January 1, 2010. Until then, it counts!

Another potential quibble is that the one-ounce platinum American Eagles were never intended for circulation, from which the idea springs up that their $100 denomination shouldn’t count. It’s true that the coins were not meant to be spent; to quote from American Eagle Platinum Bullion Coins, a U.S. Mint brochure printed in March 2004, “Their face values are largely symbolic, because platinum’s market price … has historically been higher.”

The same brochure, however, emphasizes that the platinum American Eagles are real coins with the full backing of the U.S. government, specifically their “weight, content, and purity.” The standard term is non-circulating legal tender, abbreviated NCLT, but the Treasury emphasizes the legal tender aspect. (It’s worth noting that the American Eagles, like other bullion pieces struck by governments worldwide, are official coins to give them protection under anti-counterfeiting laws, in addition to other applicable statutes.)

The one-ounce platinum American Eagle may be the largest coin the United States has ever struck, but it’s hardly the largest-denomination coin ever produced. In 2004, the Austrian Mint created 15 examples of its popular Vienna Philharmonic coin in an oversized format containing 1000 troy ounces of pure gold in a .9999 fineness alloy, with a face value of €100,000.

Three years later, the Royal Canadian Mint claimed the world record. It produced a mammoth Maple Leaf bullion coin that contains an astounding 3215 troy ounces or 100 kilograms of .99999 fineness gold. Its official denomination: C$1,000,000. The Royal Canadian Mint has filled multiple orders for the million-dollar coin, though the publicity the coin has garnered has doubtless outweighed any actual profit made; as written on the Web site, “Why did the Royal Canadian Mint make the world's purest and largest gold bullion coin? Because we can.”

Until Heritage’s World Coin department gets one of those million-dollar Canadian coins in a consignment, our bidders will have to content themselves with something…smaller. Might I suggest an ounce of platinum?

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-John Dale Beety