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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Kasia, post: 24862030, member: 31533&quot;]Well, I tend to go into SS time saying, hey, I&#039;m going to do it to see what I can give to another that hits in a really nice way for the person who gets it. And then end up finding once I get my SS gift that it just is more than I ever would expect and so awesome, unexpected, and fun.</p><p><br /></p><p>Again, this year, this is what has happened.</p><p><br /></p><p>I received a box of Chocolates from a regional chocolatier, which I had never had chocolates from before, since I&#039;m not in that area of the country. Also a cute Christmas card with wishes for peace, happiness, and love. And dogs are not always peaceful, but they do provide happiness and love, so I think I&#039;m mostly covered with my dog.... thank you!</p><p><br /></p><p>And last, but not least, my SS coin gift was (ta dum!!!)</p><p><br /></p><p>A wonderful little coin called a dime. Minted in 1853, with less silver than the previous year because of the Coinage Act, which on Feb 21st of 1853, reduced the amount of silver by 7% in coins to account for the rise in prices of silver due to gold prices changing, so that new silver coins would not simply be melted for bullion to sell at a profit. And of course it meant that the previous year coins would be turned in for melt because it was worthwhile to take that arbitrage of higher content silver in coins and turn it into a personal profit. The mint also used melted coin silver to create the new coins I believe.</p><p><br /></p><p>A little known numismatic fact is terms I did not know before looking up information on this coin and the minting of it --- &quot;new tenor&quot; and &quot;old tenor&quot;. You would not think those applied to coins, per se, but they do because the coins are essentially fiduciary money. They generally have no real intrinsic value in them as they are traded for goods in an economy, but are &#039;trusted&#039; because the stated value is backed up by the government. Many times the metals used for the coinage is not worth the value of the coins so that they can&#039;t be used as instruments of gaining wealth in and above the amount stated on the coin, but when they do, there can be problems. 1853 was a year where this problem that cropped up had to be dealt with with (well, most of) the circulating coins otherwise people would not be able to have them to circulate. Other years later on in our history also went and had similar issues, where the metal in a coin is worth more than the face value of the coin and it, without laws to stop it, either to change metal content or to forbid people from melting it. New Tenor means that the coin has a value consistent with what the value of the asset is that backs that coin. Old Tenor is one that is consistent with a previous value. The new tenor coins small coins of 1853 that had silver in them had to be about 7% less value than the old ones on metal content.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyways, this one is a VF25 1853 10 Cent Arrows coin. The mint had not had time to retool dies from previous years so they just added arrows (sort of like the War Nickels, where a large mintmark was prominently placed on the reverse of it) to easily identify a coin that had 2.49 grams of silver instead of a previous year one that had 2.67 grams of silver content. The arrows were used on 1853-1855 dimes. One function of those arrows would not just be the ability to identify easily a then-current dime to be able to use as normal spending money, but it also was there to allow those dimes without the arrows to be identified easily and turned in for the extra value they had, thus being a huge impetus to remove the old coinage from circulation. Two driving forces happened that year.</p><p><br /></p><p>As a new issue, with other coins being melted for their silver content, a flood of newly minted coins came into being in 1853. So this year is not a rare mintage year at all for this coin. In fact, over 12 million of these were minted and put into circulation, which in itself is amazing as our population was about 23-25 million people, excluding slaves, who at this time didn&#039;t have a lot of ability to be trading in coins anyways. This meant that the mint pumped out about one dime for each two people in the US who were able to, theoretically, be using it that year, and even that is a stretch because the population included a lot of women and children and infants who would never also be able to use the actual coins for trade. No previous year ever came close to that, with the most minted in one year for a dime was just over two million. It reminds me of the 1964 nickel where, to combat a coin shortage, more than 1.7 billion 1964-D were minted and over a billion -P, so that there was no way that these would be considered &#039;collectible&#039; in anyone&#039;s mind for the future as they could see it, though to do it the amounts minted were not done just in that year but were allowed to go into other years with this same date. In fact, because of the high mintage of this particular issue (the 1853 one), most would not see being saved at all from regular usage in circulation and dealers would shy away from wanting to keep them to re-sell for a long, long time.</p><p><br /></p><p>I absolutely love learning more about coins and having one in hand to enjoy and view is the best. Thank you, Secret Santa, for your thoughtfulness and in choosing a coin that can spur my knowledge of the history of coins in the US.</p><p><br /></p><p>I won&#039;t be having better pics of this coin because of other issues in my life but know that if I was able to create them, I would, because another thing I love is great coin photography. For this one, I put the gifts against a background of a favorite Christmas placemat.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1594540[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Closeup of the obverse</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1594550[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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