20 cent grade

I bought this for $40 i think thats a pretty fair price i was just wondering what this would grade, would it pass as VG?

 

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A standard G-04. But because it is old silver, this series is known for weak strikes, and the double dime is very cool, I will go G-06.

 

Good price. Nice G06

 

Yeah, G06.....

 

Heres a VG-8 according to PCGS and NGC:

 

Well worth 40 bucks

 

Easily a G6. I'd buy that myself for $40 to fill a hole in my 7070.

 

If the bright scratch is on the coin and not the holder, it would annoy me.

 

Its on the coin. Brand new scratch resistant holder from ngc. Took it out of the plastic photographed and put away.

 

A solid g-6. Nice buy for $40

 

A solid G-6. A nice coin for the right price. I paid a bit more for this one, an 1875-CC. It's dirty but it's an F-12.

This is a very short lived series. Only minted from 1875 to 1878. The CC is a highly sought after coin in any type. Only 133,290 were minted. Yours is an S Mint and 1,155,000 were minted.

The public rejected this coin as it to closely resembled the Quarter and two Dimes were just as good. This is a first year of issue. Only seven issues were struck and two of them were proof only issues minted in the last 2 years.

 

I've wondered, what exactly does this mean? People actually refused to accept them in change?

 

No, just like the dollar coin throughout history the public simply refused to use it.

 

OK, but there's tons of uncirculated dollars. Maybe there's more higher grade 20 centers than I think, but a lot of them that I see appear to have seen serious circulation.

 

The citizens rejected the Twenty Cent Piece because they too often confused it with the quarter, which was a similar size and had a similar design on the obverse. Here was what citizen did this coin to tell them apart. I wish I owned this piece, but I don’t. I had a chance to buy one 40+ years ago but didn’t pull the trigger to my regret.


I heard similar complaints from people when the Susan B. Anthony Dollars were introduced in the late 1970s.

 

There were "tons" more dollars minted as well. Most of them spent their entire working careers sitting around in vaults. 20 cent pieces for the most part went directly into use where even though they were unpopular they did at least circulate a bit.

 

Think of modern day coins, Ike and Susan B Anthony's. The mintages are a lot higher than that of coins from years ago. Modern day would be if one was handed a dollar coin most of us would ask for a paper Dollar. They just don't circulate. If one had them, the next trip to the bank would include depositing them in an account or trading them in.

The public has rejected numerous coins. Gold Indians with the incluse design was rejected for fear of germs gathering in the low places. Twenty cent coins for the closeness of a quarter. The same goes for Susan B's. The two cent piece as 2 one cent pieces were just as good.

Nickel three cent pieces were issued because the public hoarded the silver Trimes. Half Dollars do not circulate in today's world but they are still produced.

Also consider the years of mintages for twenty cent pieces, 1875-1878. What was happening at that time? Small-change transactions were satisfied by Fractional Currency notes and two Dimes worked better than the twenty cent coin.

It's not the refusal of the public but the public's unwillingness to use them. I personally prefer not to have Half Dollars, Ike's, Susan B's, Presidential or Sacajawea coins in my pocket. A handful of quarters is fine. Paper money is fine but not those coins which can't be used in machines, parking meters or in other places. Give me the coins I can use.

 

I think that the Two Cent Piece got quite a bit of use. A lot of Two Cent pieces that survive today are in Good condition, even the coins at the end of the series in the late 1860s. When I formed a set of Two Cent Pieces circa 1980 in EF, it was not that easy. The coin simply lost its purpose after the Civil War. There were more cents in circulation than were needed and the Two Cent just wasn't needed.

They were also issued to retire these three cent fractional currency notes, which the government determined were "small, dirty and unattractive." The same argument was made for the 5 cent nickel.

 

The coinage Act of April 22, 1864 changed the weight and composition of the Cent and provided for the two-Cent piece. Indian Head Cents were Copper-Nickel when first issued. This act changed them from 4.67 grams to 3.11 grams and the coin was changed to bronze.

Because of the Civil War almost all gold and silver coinage disappeared from circulation. Eventually copper-nickel coins followed suit. This caused a tremendous shortage of coins so Fractional currency was used.

Tokens were made by merchants to fill in for the lost of coins. Tokens were used for trade in merchandise or services until the government created the Act of April 22, 1864 which also made the use of merchants tokens illegal.

The first two-Cent piece was issued in 1864, weighted 6.22 grams and was the same alloy as the Cent. The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was used for the first time on this new coin. It was only produced for 10 years making it one of the shortest-lived issues of US coinage.

Production numbers dwindled steadily with the first years mintage of 19,822,500 coins dropping each year until the 9th year which had a total mintage of 65,000 coins. In the 10th and last year only proof coins were minted.

The two cent coin did receive a good amount of usage as almost all other coins were not circulating. Fractional notes were used well past their time to fill in the gaps for coins. Indian Head Cents were being produced in much larger mintages as were other post war denominations.

By the early 1870's coins were freely circulating and the war shortage was over. This helped to eliminate the need for Fractional notes.

Just 2 years after the two-cent piece passed into history, the Act of March 3, 1875 established the minting of the twenty-cent coin. Due to the size of the coin, it's likeness to the well established in commerce the Quarter and similar designs on other circulating US coins, the public rejected this issue.

In the first year, 1,326,790 pieces were minted. The rejection was so severe only 24,750 coins were produced. In the following two years only 1,110 proof only issues were minted and this series became history.

 

With all that was going on in the mid to late 1800s with coinage you'd think more would've been saved. Granted I think a Civil war soldier made $5 a month but they still could have saved a lot of those cents and 2 cents.

I imagine alot of people during that time never got their hands on a 20 cent piece because the mintages were so low and so short lived. I think the 20 cent piece is cool but wasn't well thought out at the time. As others stated here, the quarters are so close in size and obverse design that it just didn't make good sense. People want to glance. They don't want to have to study each coin before they use it. 5 cents was a lot bigger deal back then.

That 20 cent stamped with 20s is really cool.