What is a ?stove lid??
In Nevada during the 1870s, this nickname was given to Trade dollars in the Virginia City area. Whether the term was merely a local slang term or had widespread use is unknown, but it was used in a newspaper article that appeared there in 1876.
Is it true that the Confederacy struck only 16 coins during the Civil War?
Sixteen coins were actually commissioned by the South, 12 cents and four half dollars. The halves were not completely a Confederate design because they had a standard 1861 obverse. However, much larger quantities of coins were actually struck by use of captured U.S. Mint dies and bullion.
Wasn?t there another later coin proposed with the same design as the Chain cent of 1793?
Subject of substantial criticism at the time, the chain motif traces back to the Continental dollar patterns of 1776. It was used on the obverse. The design was also used for a proposed $20 coin for the Confederacy. It was to have a 15-link chain marking the states that had seceded. Apparently, the design was never engraved on a die.
Is there a coin known as the Jefferson Davis dime?
The piece is a Confederate Civil War silver token or medalet, with the bust of Davis, and the wording ?CSA FIRST PRESIDENT.? The nickname arose from the size and metal. It is fairly rare.
I have a cent on a thin planchet that has a blank reverse. How can this happen?
It sounds like the coin had the reverse ground off and been treated with acid. It is impossible to strike only one side of a coin.
I recently found a Buffalo nickel that is only about one-fourth of the size of a regular coin, but the design is perfect. Does it have any value?
The small nickel is a miniature copy with no collector value. These are often sold as sets of different denominations. A century or two down the road they will have some value, but not now.
Did the slang term ?buck? for a dollar have anything to do with the deer population in our forests?
?Buck? is traced to the Ohio area, among several others, where deer skins were at one time or another used as money. A prime hide was worth about a dollar. ?Long Green? is another such term, coming from the tobacco money of Virginia and Maryland.
