Why are dimes smaller in diameter than a modern penny??

Very true that the silver barons of the 1870s and 1880s bribed the Congress into legislating that silver be bought in huge amounts for coining into silver dollars, ie the Morgan Dollars, but one longterm result was that paper money issued by the Treasury etc finally achieved parity with a silver dollar and a gold dollar - a status that had not been yet realized from the start of the Civil War in 1861 until 1878.

 

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If we did adjust today's coin according to their silver value, then we would never limit the size of a dime to such a thin size. It would likely be alloyed to at least maintain the dime's traditional size. Which makes me wonder why even the 3-cent pieces weren't alloyed for a larger round, since I don't believe there was a precedent or tradition to match the small size of the three pence (not sure if all of Great Britain and its colonies' three pence coins were wider, but looking at the 1865 year as an example).

The Mint seems to stubbornly keeps silver's fineness at a minimum, thereby limiting coins to a smaller diameter as if it were an afterthought. If it was a Congressional law that required dimes and the 3-cent pieces to be made of a (high) specific silver fineness, then there's only so much the Mint can do and the smaller width of the dime compared to the penny and nickel makes contextual sense.

 

SMART

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he didn't know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And then I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head --
Too proud of me to speak!

poem by
Shel Silverstein

 

An ounce is 28.3g.

The resulting coin, to retain any kind of thickness, would be significantly smaller than a 3CS (around 3/8" diameter) and contain about a half-gram of silver (a Trime is 0.8g).

 

An Avoirdupois ounce is 28.3 g, but we aren't measuring cheese, we are measuring precious metals and need to use the Troy scale, in which an ounce is 31.1035 g.

 

OK, fine. I stand modified (if not corrected)

Hang around. Apparently I need you to clean up after me.

 

Nah, interesting stuff. It's long winded, but I expanded the old "Ounce of feathers or ounce of gold" thing...
Which weighs more, an ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?
The gold weighs more since a Troy ounce is 31.1 g and an Av ounce is 28.3 g.

Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?
The feathers weigh more since a Troy pound is 12X31.1 g and an Av pound is 16X28.3 g

Geeky

 

An excerpt below from the 1891 book entitled, "An Index to the Coins and Medals of the Cabinet of the Mint of the United States at Philadelphia" by the United States Mint... the dime was required by Congress to be of an exact weight and fineness. The best that the Mint could do was to make the dime as thin as possible, while being thick enough to not bend/break.

Since Congress didn't specify a diameter, it would have been reasonable to assume that they didn't think of the small dime's consequences. However, they would have corrected that in the 1837 Act. Yet, the given weight and fineness increase tells me that they were simply maintaining the diameter.

That said, what's plausible to me is that Congress followed a mathematic proportion of silver (excerpt on half dime below reflects this), that may have had to do with the confluence of the perception of a strong stable currency by way of sound coinage practices as set by European tradition, and simply the resulting weight of silver when fixing the dollar to silver and gold (I refer to traditions as those influenced by some European economies, but probably more due to the direct influence of the consistent standards set by the roughly .9000 fineness 8 Reales). Otherwise, they could have simply diluted the dime's fineness outright but kept the same ASW - but that would cost more to mint, due to the greater amount of balance metals (raw metals prices, transportation, etc.). So, it appears that what's at least consistent as the reason for the dime's diameter is the tradition and silver's fixed value standards that were set at the time.

Just my 2 cents (err, dimes?)...

 

So you have finally answered your own question that we have been trying to answer for you all this time. I'm glad to see that your digging into the history. You will find lot's of answers as to why things are the way they are by looking at history.

 

back during the 17-early 1900's the dimes purchasing power was so great..its amazing

 

Yes - I referenced this point earlier regarding the greater purchasing power over the yester-centuries; this only reinforced my thought that such a valuable denomination should be put into a larger diameter, lest we lose a smaller round.

It seems that Congress was adamant on sticking with tradition and math, probably to convey a responsible and sound minting practice.

 

Were the masses simply unable to "afford" silver coins way back as far as the ancient period? I'm imagining the relative scarcity and value back then, and how far we've come in silver supply with today's technologies.

Perhaps coins didn't circulate to the extent they did today; meaning, maybe silver coins (not bronze, copper, etc.) were exchanged in large sums, maybe even chestfuls instead to purchase large items, while leaving everyday goods and services to be paid with bronze, copper, etc.

Not sure, you all tell me. lol

 

Possibly why we ended up with so many "cut" coins?

 

Thanks to everyone who has answered. There has been a wealth of information shared. This is the reason this forum is such a great thing. There are so many people on here that are willing to share their knowledge. Thank you so much

 

I agree! It speaks to much, that commands from the top down are not as powerful as traditions from the bottom up. The quarter dollar, as two "bits" i.e., two reales, was common and familiar. The website "Spanish Coins on American Banknotes" provides even more evidence of both the tenacity of "Spanish milled dollars" and the relative scarceness of US Mint coinage.

I believe that it is Eric P. Newman who pointed out for an ANS essay that merchants along the East Coast kept their books in Pounds-Shillings-Pence into the 1830s, fifty years after "independence" from Britain.

 

I found this excerpt in a link provided in a different thread. It looks like the US Mint did in fact look into keeping sizes manageable, even as far back as 1792!



The U.S. Mint experimented with a bi-metallic cent to keep the size of the coin manageable and meet the requirements of the Coinage Act of April 2, 1792. The first silver center cents were struck December 17 to 18, 1792. Each was made by hand at the Mint, workmen first making the copper blank and then punching out a small hole, and next inserting the silver plug, and finally striking the coins using the appropriate dies.





http://www.core77.com/posts/12587/how-they-make-bi-metallic-coins-12587

 

They did that because at the time the cent, if it was to contain nearly 1 cents worth of copper, would have weighed 264 grains. It would have been HUGE. The thick lettered edge cent as finally issued in 1793 weighted 208 grains and in 1795 was further reduced to 168 grains.