Featured Small Change During the Civil War

Given the its distance from the conflict, California didn't see it's lifestyle change much during the Civil War. Money continued to circulate pretty much the way it did before the war. There was lots of gold to turn into coins, so there were not coin shortage.

I also imagine that prices were still fairly high in California, so a cent or a Civil War token would have had little buying power.

There was a law in California that made paper money illegal. Since the greenbacks were legal tender, that law would have been null and void, but who would push the issue? That was lots of gold, and that's what people wanted to use.

 

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From Wikipedia:
In 1850, New York Senator Daniel S. Dickinson introduced legislation for a three-cent piece in .750 fine silver, that is, three parts silver to one part copper (American silver coins were then .900 fine). He proposed to offer it in exchange for the Spanish silver, which would be valued at eight reals to the dollar for the purpose, higher than the going rate. The new coin would weigh three-tenths as much as the dime, but the debasement of the silver would compensate the government for the losses it would take in redeeming the underweight, worn Spanish coins. The three-cent denomination was chosen as it coordinated well with the six and twelve cent values often assigned the fip and levy. The House of Representatives instead considered legislation to reduce the valuation of the Spanish coins to ten cents per real, and to strike a twenty-cent piece, of .900 silver, to facilitate the exchange. Neil Carothers, in his book on small-denomination American money, suggests that the House's plan would have resulted in the Spanish coins staying in circulation, and any twenty-cent pieces issued being hoarded or melted. No legislation passed in 1850, which saw continued export of America's silver coinage.[3]

Impetus for the passage of a three-cent coin came when Congress, in January 1851, considered reducing postage rates from five cents to three. In 1849, House Committee on Ways and Means chairman, Samuel Vinton, had written to Mint director Robert M. Patterson that his committee was considering both reducing the postage rate and instituting a three-cent coin. Although no legislative action was then taken, Patterson had the mint prepare experimental pattern coins.[4] The House committee proposing the 1851 bill included Dickinson's three-cent piece, and provided that it be legal tender up to 30 cents. When the bill was debated in the House on January 13, 1851, New York Congressman William Duer indicated that he felt both coin and stamp should be denominated at 21⁄2 cents, and his fellow New Yorker, Orsamus Matteson, offered an amendment to that effect. The amendment failed, as did every other attempt to change the legislation, including Dickinson's plea, in the Senate, to restore the requirement that the new coin be used to retire some of the Spanish silver. The bill passed both houses, and became the Act of March 3, 1851 when President Millard Fillmore signed it.[5][6][7]

Carothers pointed out the precedent-setting nature of the legislation, the first to authorize an American silver coin containing an amount of metal worth considerably less than its face value:

This almost forgotten statute is one of the most significant measures in American currency history. After resisting for sixty years every attempt to introduce any form of fiduciary silver coinage, Congress adopted a subsidiary silver coin as an adjunct to the postal service, without realizing that the first step had been taken in the relegation of silver to the status of a subordinate monetary material. The new piece was the first silver coin in the history of the United States that was not legal tender for an unlimited amount. Subsidiary coinage had been established, but in a trivial way, by an unworkable law, and at a time when the entire silver currency was flowing out of the country.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-cent_silver

 

Very nice. I am reading the new book by John Bierly, In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion.

BTW: It was John Gault, not Galt.

 

Allow me to pile on... It was John Gault, not Galt.

 

Huh

 

Thank you @johnmilton i really enjoyed that. Being from the south, ive always had an interest in the civil war and the confederates. That was really informative and iam waiting for the next article.

 

Hello johnmilton, thank you for this great thread!

Wondering if I could get in touch with you offline to ask a question or two (I don't see a way to send you a PM in this group). I'm currently writing a book that touches on the subject of using stamps as currency. For one, I'm wondering if you have a source for the story of the house that collapsed under the weight of the coin hoard (my source is "The History of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing 1862–1962", but I'm wondering if you have a 1st-hand source for that story). Thanks again for sharing your knowledge!

 

The story about the house collapse has been told in The Civil War Token Journal. I would have to scratch around to find it again since I think that magazine has been published since the late 1960s. I have many, but not all of the issues.

 

Thank you John!

 

@johnmilton

Outstanding posts. Been collecting Michigan store cards for some time and really enjoy their historical impact. Even have done a couple MSNS exhibits that were well received.