What's the Oldest Coin still accepted?

I believe there is one exception to US minted coins remaining legal tender and that is the US Trade Dollar. By the way at my establishment I will accept Athenian Owls (old style, thick flans) at 50 cents, Roman Denarii at 10 cents, Byzantine solidi at $1.50 and German Thalers at 75 cents. Oh, I think the legislation requiring US post offices to accept the old Spanish silver pieces at 80% of their face values after 1857 may still be in force.

 

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As far as I know, the US has never demonitized anything except for gold, and I don't think the trade dollar was ever legal tender in the US. However, I think large cents are still legal tender at face value.

 

Now all pre-decimal coins are demonetized, but still redeemable. Of course they are usually worth more as a collectable than what you would get by redeeming them. The last coins to be demonetized were the shillings and florins minted up until 1967 - and they were only demonetized because the corresponding denominations in decimal currency were downsized in the early 1990s. The other denominations were demonetized in the very early 1970s, except for the sixpence which circulated as a 2.5 penny coin, and the shilling as a five pence and florin as a ten pence coin. The sixpence was demonetized in 1980, but is still redeemable as are all other 1816-1967 coins.

 

The trade dollar was only monetized in the Coinage Act of 1965 which monetized all coins save the gold coins issued up until 1933.

 

If currency is demonetized, how can it be redeemed? My understanding of "demonetization" is that it no longer holds monetary value to the issuing authority. So, if you can "redeem" it, it is still "monetized," right?

Were pre-decimal coins perhaps only withdrawn?

So, for a shilling (1/12 of a pound), what will the bank give you in decimal currency?

 

Demonetized in the case of British sterling means that the older predecimal coinage is no longer legal tender in say, Boots the Chemist or Tesco, but you can take it to your NatWest branch and turn it in and get paid back in decimal currency. It happens with much less frequency with the predecimal coinage now, I would imagine that most of the demonetized exchanges now are for the larger and older sized 5p, 10p, and 50p coins.

 

Question of definition. Here in the Federal Republic of Germany for example, all coins and notes ever issued by this country (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bank deutscher Länder/Deutsche Bundesbank) can still be redeemed. The one single exception is a 2 DM piece from 1951, but that has a higher value than €1.02 for collectors anyway.

So the DM coins and notes are not legal tender - but they have an unlimited redemption period. Since the oldest ones were issued in 1949 (a few even have a 1948 date), we're not close to the "oldest coin" criterion from the topic title though.

Christian

 

Wasn't that coin not authorised, and struck illegally in the mint?

I also recall that the 50 DM note from 1948 that was the French printed note was withdrawn very early in the 1950s and lost all monetary value.

Sometime I want to find one of the 5 DM notes from 1963 with the Albrecht Durer portrait of the Venetian woman that was one of the notes printed allegedly for use in Berlin but never released.

 

Not at all. It's just that it was considered too close, design and size wise, to the 1 DM coin. Was a one-year issue, not many had been made, so it simply became worthless 7 years later. Guess it would be possible to do what the US did and retroactively make it legal tender again, or redeemable these days, but as I wrote before, I don't have a problem with (generously) limited redemption periods anyway.

Well, that is why in Germany it makes sense to differentiate - Fed. Rep. money that has lost its legal tender status is still redeemable. See here; guess what you mean is the "50 Mark BdL note II (green), issued in 1948".

Money from "other German countries" (Holy Roman Empire, Deutsches Reich, GDR, etc.) is not affected by that redemption policy. But again, none of these Federal Republic pieces is an "oldest" coin, hehe.

Christian

 

Well this question depends on a few factors. One of the most important is, do you mean legally or in practice? As someone mentioned earlier you may still be able to spend old Spanish silver (if some one can look this up and confirm it that would be super cool) at Post Offices, legally, however; in practice they won't accept it. Legally speaking, from what I understand, all coins authorized by Congress and created by the U.S. Mint are legal tender for all debts public and private. Now there is some funny loopholes in this that technically make Type 2 SLQ not legal tender because the type to revamp was not authorized by Congress and I'm sure there are other coins like it but, to answer you question here are the oldest dates I've found.

Cents: 1887 IH
Nickels: 1912-D
Dimes: 1916 Mercury
Quarters: 1934 (My Profile Pic)
Half Dollars: 1965
Dollars: 1971

To really answer your question, you pretty much need to find out one thing. In practice, when did people stop spending/accepting large cents? Then add that to the end date on when the coin series ended and tada you have a rough answer. Hope this helps.


P.S. If that law about spending Spanish Silver in Post Offices is still in effect, could someone tape themselves trying to spend some to ship something?

 

So, predecimal currency is "depositable" (is that a word?) only, then.
That would make sense, policy-wise.

 

The point of this all is to have a standardized appearance and form of currency, while the issuing authority can still honor its old "promises" for those people still holding older currency, right?
Sounds reasonable.

 

@chrisild But weren't there some coins, ie 1 DM maybe 2 DM coins that were struck illegally in the mints in Germany in the early 1950s?

BTW I still have a bit over 25DM in change and notes that are leftovers from past traipses across Germany or coin machine finds that it is nice to know I can redeem sometime if fortune takes me back.

 

I'm not up on non-US currency, but it sounds like we're in the lead on this particular question.

In the last five years I've received a Liberty nickel (1893?) in change, and a couple of Indian cents. The Indian cents take us back to 1859, and I imagine a flying eagle cent might pass, too.

Automated change acceptors probably wouldn't like copper-nickel cents (they're thicker), but should accept any small cent form 1865 or later, as well as any five-cent nickel (except maybe war nickels). Automated change dispensers will give out anything that's fed to them, within reasonable size limits; they've given me Canadian (magnetic) coins and silver US coins, and I'm sure they'd dispense any silver made since the dimensional changes in the early 1800s.

I expect that I'd have trouble spending large cents or half dimes, but a bank teller has shown me a large-diameter Bust half that a convenience-store owner accepted and deposited. So I think you could, in principle, spend some US coins from the 1700s at face value (dimes, quarters, possibly halves and dollars). In fact, if it doesn't run afoul of the buy/sell/trade restrictions, I'll state here that I'll happily accept such coins at face value for any debt owed to me.

 

I'd love to tell you you are full of crap for saying that, but then I have seen some pretty amazing stuff that you wonder how nobody bothered to save, keep, etc. And I have found a total of two FE cents dated 1858, one in a customer wrapped roll, the other in a bank wrapped roll in roll searches last year. They are my oldest roll finds.

Here are the others:
Nickel 1888
Dime 1898
Quarter - dateless SL quarter from the 1920s
Half 1942
Dollar 1897 when I was a kid in the 70s, and a 1922 at the bank last year.

 

Yeah, most of the tellers I've talked to say that they still occasionally get people turning in silver dollars. One said "I tried to tell her to take it to a coin shop, but she said she doesn't trust those coin dealers". I think even the greediest dealer would offer better than face value...

If people are willing to turn in Morgan and Peace dollars for face value, I'm sure they'd turn in Seated or Bust dollars with no more hesitation.

 

I've found ihc v nickels barber dimes and once a worn flat 1887 seated dime. I've been known to add dateless buffs into circulation on occasion

 

Well Scottishmoney has indicated that older British coins are redeemable but no longer legal tender so that takes them out of the running. It really looks like the 1793 Chain cent is the oldest coin that is still legal tender.

The trade dollar was legal tender (for amounts up to $5) from 1873 to mid 1876. Then the legal tender status was removed. A Congressional resolution in 1933 restored the legal tender status and it was codified into law by the coinage act of 1965.

The act of 1857 eliminated the legal tender status of the spanish colonial silver as of two years after the passage of the act. Post offices were permitted to accept the spanish fractional silver at reduced rates after that time and that legislation was extended several times. But the coins were NOT legal tender. I believe the final extension of that permission expired before the re-codification of the coinage laws by the acts of 1873 and 1874.

 

And they are redeemable only back to 1816 when the coinage was changed during the regency period. But if you would like to redeem older coinage, I will gladly give you face value for it, really enjoy Guineas, Crowns, etc.

 

If I remember correctly the shilling became the new 5 pence (and a shilling was 1/20 of a pound not 1/12.)