Twenty-cent piece (United States coin)
Proposed by Nevada Senator John P. Jones, it proved a failure due to confusion with the quarter, to which it was close in both size and value. After the first year, in which over a million were minted, there was little demand, and the denomination was abolished in 1878. A twenty- cent piece had been proposed as early as 1791, and again in 1806, but had been rejected.
About Twenty-cent piece (United States coin) in brief
The American twenty-cent piece is a coin struck from 1875 to 1878, but only for collectors in the final two years. Proposed by Nevada Senator John P. Jones, it proved a failure due to confusion with the quarter, to which it was close in both size and value. After the first year, in which over a million were minted, there was little demand, and the denomination was abolished in 1878. At least a third of the total mintage was later melted by the government. A twenty- cent piece had been proposed as early as 1791, and again in 1806, but had been rejected. Several times in the 1860s and 1870s, the United States Mints struck coins that were part of the design of foreign money struck in some cases with the equivalent of the twenty-dollar coin. The twenty-Cent piece was to be equivalent to one French franc, and if struck in proportion to the smaller silver coins being struck, would weigh five grams, which appealed to advocates of the metric system in the U.S. A second purpose for a large issue of large silver coins, regardless of denomination, was to retire the fractional-value paper money that was being used to issue the coins. The coin was struck as part of a series of coins struck in 1875 and 1878 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. The coins have a smooth edge, rather than reeded as with otherSilver coins, the new piece was close to the size of, and immediately confused with, the quarter.
Although the base-metal nickel was not widely accepted in the far West, the silver half dime had been struck in increasing numbers at the San Francisco Mint until the silver coin, which did not circulate in the East, was abolished by Congress in 1873. A shortage of small change resulted, especially as half dimes were used in the jewelry trade; customers complained they could not get full change for an item costing ten cents for which they paid with a quarter. Government payments in silver and gold had been suspended during the economic chaos caused by the civil war. Coins containing precious metal were hoarded except on the Pacific Coast, and did not pass at face value in trade. In 1873, the Coinage Act of 1873 ended the practice of allowing silver producers to have their bullion struck into silver dollars and returned to them. The former mint director Henry Linderman foresaw that those prices would fall as mines became accessible due to the completion of the transcontinental railroad. He quietly urged Congress to end the practice, which it did. Within a year, silver prices had dropped, and producers tried vainly to deposit bullion at the mints.
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This page is based on the article Twenty-cent piece (United States coin) published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
