Do U.S. coins maintain face value forever? This is a "just curious" question. Do all coins ever minted by the U.S. maintain legal tender status? I tried internet searches, and the search engine here. Forgive me if this has been asked before. I'll read the correct thread if someone can guide me to it.
With only one brief exception (the trade dollar, which was reinstated), everything every issued by the United States is still legal tender.
You read stories (especially on coin boards) about clerks puzzled by Kennedy halves or Eisenhower dollars. When I was at Coin World, Bill Gibbs had a suggestion to send me and a photographer out to local stores with an array of old coins - half cents, large cents, 20 cent, 3 cent, as well as Classic Era and 19th century. He never got the budget for the project, but you can imagine how it would go. Also, not coins, but regarding US paper, is it not true that (1) the $100,000 was used only between banks and never circulated; and (2) Gold Notes were all demonetized in 1933. What about Fractional Currency? US Code 31 Section 5103 says that all United States coins and currency - including Federal Reserve Notes - are legal tender. §5103. Legal tender United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tenderfor all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts. (The Library of Congress THOMAS online links to the House of Representatives presentation here.) But I believe that this is incomplete. The only reference to "fractional currency"is under Counterfeiting.
Almost. The half cents and large cents were not legal tender when they were first issued, nor were flying eagle cents or the copper nickel indian head cents. One cent coins did not gain legal tender status (and even then only limited legal tender status) until 1864. The half cent did not receive legal tender status until 1933 (This was also when the Trade dollar had it's legal tender status restored.) As doug pointed out all the coins had their legal tender status reaffirmed by the coinage act of 1965.
Coinage Act of March 3, 1851: Authorized the 3-cent (0.750 fine silver) with legal tender status up to 30 cents. ["Three Cents for Your Thoughts" by Dennis Rocklein; Glendale Coin Club: http://www.glencoin.com/threecen.htm] The article above by Alan Herbert goes into a lot of detail on the changes in legal tender status of coins, including both minors and minor silvers. The Coinage Act of June 8, 1879, set the legal tender limit of minor silver coins at $10. "Minor silver" means anything less than a dollar, which is the "standard silver" coin.
Not necessarily. Just because a coin or a dollar bill in any denomination is indeed legal tender, that does not mean that anybody is required by law to accept it as payment. Anybody can refuse to accept any coin or bill that they don't want to accept.
Actually, today's Starbuck employee (just like some 7-11 clerks I know) would have no idea what a Morgan is, and have to ask an old person, possibly a customer, what is this?
