The smallest coin minted in the USA?

Hi,

Not had very much to post over the last few months, a combination of many converging issues. But back to it and this came into my possession today.

A 2 and 1/2 Centesimos or “Panama Pill”

Apparently used to make coins conform to a certain value.

Seems a lot of effort for such a small amount, only 400, 000 minted but the skill is much to be appreciated I think, to have it made so small the dies must have been made by some high expert.
Enjoy

Allan

Should have said the measurements are inch increments

 

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No, not really... they made the model on a full size disk. They had a reducing lathe that worked on a ratio of gears. It took the original scale model and reduced it to whatever size they wanted, based on the gear ratio. They didn't have some guy in there carving a 10mm die!

Why? The coin was 10mm. Your pictures against an arbitrary ruler tell us nothing.

This coin was 10mm. The smallest US issue was 14 mm, the 3 cent silver coin. For those who know, this is a very small coin.

 

But it's thick relative to its diameter. The three-cent silvers (both varieties) were lighter than the Panama Pill, because even though their diameter was larger, they were much, much thinner.

I'll continue to object when people say the Pill is "smaller" than the trime, because understanding conservation of volume was sort of my intellectual peak.

 

I have an 1855/4 Octagonal California Gold 25 cent piece. It was clearly minted in the US and is about 10mm in size. (Heritage photo)

 

I've seen little gold-washed St. Gaudens replica tokens much smaller than that, and I'm sure some of them had been "minted" in the US. I'm thinking we're discussing "struck at a US mint". (And not including the nails and nail-clippings and such that were destined only for TPG slabs.)

 

The key is in the wording or the intent... these were not US mint products. "Minted" implies striking by a mint.. an official government agency.

 

Those are pretty small and could get lost very easily, even with the 1/20 and 1/10
once coins which are slightly larger.

 

For comparison, the 1917 McKinley commemorative $1 gold coin was 14.3mm and 0.0484 oz / 1.70 grams of gold.

I believe the 1903 Jefferson / Louisiana Purchase $1 gold was the same size.

 

Yep, they were the same as the standard-issue gold dollars from the 19th century.

 

The California Gold pieces were issued by private mints, not the US Mints. Private mints were allowed to make them for use in the economy to fill in for coin shortages. Most of these issues were fractional pieces. Yours had a face value of Twenty-Five Cents.

 

I have several of them. they're tiny.
I have the McKinley, the 1926 $2.50 one below, LA Purchase and a couple others.

 

The Trime was not the smallest US coin (in diameter). As mentioned they were 14 mm, the type 1 gold dollars were 13 mm, but they were heavier than the trime.

 

Now I'm envious. I tried to snatch one of those on eBay well over a decade ago then forgot about that specific coin.

 

I'm envious too, geez!

 

Hey! Really nice specimen. Question. What's pictorial around the "One Dollar". Some kind of sea creatures??

 

They are supposed to be dolphins. The two of them represents the joining of the oceans.

 

here's the 2003 redbook description of it

 

I love little coins! Here's my Panama Pill. I was also shocked about how thick it was compared to the diminutive diameter.