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    Coinage of the United States: A Short History
    Coinage of the United States: A Short History
    Coinage of the United States: A Short History
    Ebook56 pages35 minutes

    Coinage of the United States: A Short History

    By Doug West

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    About this ebook

    The history of United States coinage is a story that parallels the rise of America. Starting from a humble beginning in a basement in Philadelphia in the first few years of the country to grow to a large highly sophisticated system that produces millions of coins per year. Due to a lack of silver, the first silver coins produced by the Mint came from silverware contributed by George and Martha Washington. Coins are something we take for granted today and put in jars and baskets on our night stands to accumulate for a rainy day when we need a few extra dollars. For more than half of the history of America, that wouldn’t have been possible for the average citizen. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that coinage became widely used for all types of transactions. Up until this time, barter and money substitutes, such as, tokens, script, and foreign coins, were used as a mediums of exchange. During the 1830’s and then again during the Civil War, coins were in such short supply that merchants and private individuals took to producing cent sized coins just to make change for the day to day transactions. In America, it was legal up until 1857 to use foreign money in transactions. The Spanish dollars and their fractional parts called “bits” were very common during colonial times up until the mid-1800s.
    President Theodore Roosevelt sparked a change in the designs on coins from a standardized institutional theme to more artistic and attractive designs. The President enlisted the help of one of the country’s most prominent sculptures to create some of the most beautiful coins in the history of the country and perhaps the entire world. Up until recent times, the value of the silver and gold coins depended on their intrinsic metal value. This was a constant headache for the Mint, as the value of gold and silver would rise, the coins would disappear from circulation to be melted and sold for their bullion value. It wasn’t up until 1964 that the Mint totally abandoned precious metals for the day-to-day coinage and changed the composition to what we see today as modern copper-nickel clad coinage.
    Come and take the journey into what seems so ubiquitous today, and learn the fascinated history of these little metal objects in our pockets and purses.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDoug West
    Release dateOct 29, 2015
    ISBN9781310060908
    Coinage of the United States: A Short History
    Author

    Doug West

    Doug West is a retired engineer, small business owner, and an experienced non-fiction writer with several books to his credit. His writing interests are general, with expertise in science, history, biographies, numismatics, and “How to” topics. Doug has a B.S. in Physics from the Missouri School of Science and Technology and a Ph.D. in General Engineering from Oklahoma State University. He lives with his wife and little dog “Millie” near Kansas City, Missouri.

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      Book preview

      Coinage of the United States - Doug West

      Coinage of the United States – A Short History

      By Doug West, Ph.D.

      ~~~

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2015 Doug West

      All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 – Coins in Colonial America

      Chapter 2 - United States Coinage – Early Attempts

      Chapter 3 – The United States Mint is Established

      Chapter 4 - The Rush for Gold

      Chapter 5 – Coinage During the Civil War

      Chapter 6 – The Comstock Lode and the Push for Silver

      Chapter 7 – The Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars

      Chapter 8 – Twentieth Century Coinage

      Chapter 9 – Modern Coinage

      Chapter 10 - Gold and Silver Bullion Program

      Glossary

      Acknowledgments

      Further Reading

      About the Author

      Preface

      Welcome to the book Coinage of the United States – A Short History. This book is part of the 30 Minute Book Series and, as the name of the series implies, if you are an average reader this book will take around 30 minutes to read. Since this book is not meant to be an all-encompassing story of United States coinage, you may want to know more about this interesting subject. To help you with this, there are several good references at the end of this book. To assist you with terms you may not be familiar with, a glossary is included. Thank you for purchasing this book and I hope you enjoy your time reading about the history of United States coinage.

      Doug West

      October 2015

      Introduction

      The story of United States coinage is really just a reflection of the history of America. The young nation just being formed struggled to supply a steady stream of coinage to the citizens so they could go about their day-to-day lives, buying and selling their products, and purchasing the items they needed for their lives. Up until the end of the Civil War, the coins the typical American found in their pocket or purse could have as easily been from France, England, Spain, or the United States. Maybe at their local merchant they would pay with some paper money issued by the bank down the street, and receive as change some privately issued merchant tokens that were good for trade again with that storekeeper. For the first century of American life, having plenty of

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