Twenty-cent piece (U.S. coin)
| United States | |
| Value | 0.20 US dollar |
|---|---|
| Mass | 5 g |
| Diameter | 22 mm |
| Edge | Plain |
| Composition | |
| Silver | 0.1447 troy oz |
| Years of minting | 1875–1878 |
| Mint marks | CC, S. Located beneath eagle on reverse. Philadelphia Mint specimens lack mint mark. |
| Obverse | |
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|
| Design | Liberty seated |
| Designer | Christian Gobrecht |
| Design date | 1836 (re-engraved by William Barber, 1875) |
| Reverse | |
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|
| Design | A left-facing bald eagle |
| Designer | William Barber |
| Design date | 1875 |
The American twenty-cent piece is a coin struck from 1875 to 1878, but only for collectors in the final two years. Proposed by Nevada Senator John P. Jones, it proved a failure due to confusion with the quarter, to which it was close in both size and value.
In 1874, the newly elected Jones began pressing for a twenty-cent piece, which he stated would alleviate the shortage of small change in the far West. The bill passed Congress, and mint director Henry Linderman ordered pattern coins struck. Linderman eventually decided on an obverse and reverse similar to that of other silver coins.
Although the coins have a smooth edge, rather than reeded as with other silver coins, the new piece was close to the size of, and immediately confused with, the quarter. Adding to the bewilderment, the obverse, or "heads", sides of both coins were almost identical. After the first year, in which over a million were minted, there was little demand, and the denomination was abolished in 1878. At least a third of the total mintage was later melted by the government. Numismatist Mark Benvenuto called the twenty-cent piece "a chapter of U.S. coinage history that closed almost before it began".
A twenty-cent piece had been proposed as early as 1791, and again in 1806, but had been rejected. The 1806 bill, introduced by Connecticut Senator Uriah Tracy, sought both a two-cent piece and a "double dime". It was opposed by mint director Robert Patterson, though his opposition was more to the two-cent piece, which Tracy proposed be struck in billon, low-grade silver that would be difficult to recover when melting the coins. The bill passed the Senate twice, in 1806 and 1807, but did not pass the House of Representatives. No twenty-cent piece was issued prior to the 1870s, but Americans were familiar with the denomination as the two reales piece struck in Spain, known as a "pistareen" in the United States, passed for twenty cents (its Spanish colonial equivalent passed for a quarter).
Several factors converged to make possible a twenty-cent piece in the 1870s. The first was a shortage of small change in the far West, where base-metal coins did not circulate. Government payments in silver and gold had been suspended during the economic chaos caused by the civil war—coins containing precious metal were hoarded except on the Pacific Coast, and did not pass at face value in trade. Although the base-metal nickel was not widely accepted in the far West, the silver half dime had been struck in increasing numbers at the San Francisco Mint until the silver coin, which did not circulate in the East, was abolished by Congress in 1873. A shortage of small change resulted, especially as half dimes were used in the jewelry trade; customers complained they could not get full change for an item costing ten cents for which they paid with a quarter. Prices in the West were sometimes in bits (12 1⁄2 cents, based on the old Spanish colonial real, although those pieces no longer circulated), adding to the change problem. Numismatist David Lange states that a shipment of nickels out West could have solved everything, but that they might not have been accepted due to the prejudice against money which did not contain precious metal.
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