Archive for May, 2022

A History of U. S. Coinage

History_Of_US_Coinage      <— pdf

Dear Readers:

The attached pdf file describes the history of coinage in the U. S. since 1791.  “Coinage” here means gold, silver and copper coins (referred to as “minor coin”).  Although Congress authorized coinage of money in 1791, none was actually coined until 1793.  The dollar was defined as a weight of silver, and was changed at various times in the 1800’s.  The dollar was defined de facto as a weight of gold in 1879, and formalized in 1900.  In 1933, the dollar was separated from gold, and became a fiat currency domestically, although was technically still defined as a weight of gold.  Silver was removed from U. S. coinage in 1965, and since then all our coins consist of nickel, zinc, and trace amounts of copper.

All the data in these charts are from my recent book “The Control and Manipulation of Money”, available for free download at httpss://fremontvalleybooks.com

The book also contains a complete history of monetary legislation, bank condition statements, descriptions of the various banking systems, as well as a tutorial on free-enterprise economics.  I hope you will find it informative.

Thanks for reading,

Ed Duvall

Posted in Early American history, Economics, U. S. money supply | Comments Off on A History of U. S. Coinage