Odd Denominations

            Some of these coin denominations might not be so strange to Englander’s, or other Europeans, but for the  modern day American, they’re fairly unusual.  These coins are the Two cent, Three cent, and Twenty cent pieces.   You see, in England two of these coins are common circulating coins (two pence and twenty pence coins), but  here in America, these coins, did not last very long and were considered unusual, although they did see  circulation.  The twenty cent piece in particular was odd and lasted a very short time, but this is not at all  surprising because the twenty-five cent coin was around for a good 75 years before it’s introduction!  I chose not  to add the Half cent because it was circulating for about 64 years before it ended.  Not to mention, it was  common back then, as the one cent actually had some buying power.

            Now, a little bit about each coin. 

The two cent coin was first released for circulation in 1864, and ended in 1872, a mere 8 years of  circulation (they were minted in 1873, but only as proofs), with the most common years being the first two years –  there were nearly 20 million minted in 1864 - and with each subsequent year there were less and less minted.

Photo Courtest of Kanga

The three cent piece was first introduced in 1851, and even back then was considered unusual.  However,  it had a combined lifetime of 38 years!  There were two varieties, silver, and nickel.  The nickel three cent pieces  are later versions, produced from 1865 to 1889 and are about the size of a dime.  The silver versions on the  other had were minted from 1851 to 1873 (so yes, both were minted at the same time), and were actually  smaller than a dime.

Silver

Photo Courtesy of Kanga