Money!

Have you ever wondered why half dollars, quarters, and dimes have rough edges (called Reeding) but nickels and pennies don't? I doubt it, but here is the answer anyway.

All money used to be in coin form, and each coin was made of a precious medal. Originally people could just trade the raw medals, but this was risky because there was no standardization of quality in the medal, plus you needed to bring a scale with you to business deals in order to know how much money you were getting. This was burdensome, so around 700 BC countries began making coins that had a fixed amount of quality and weight. This worked for about 10 minutes, then dirty thieves found a way to cheat the system. Early coins were made by pounding a piece of medal with some kind of hammer, shaping it, then stamping it with whatever emblem was appropriate for that denomination. The process was less that an exact science, so each coin turned out a little different. Tricky people began to shave the edges of the coins, melt the shavings into new coins/blocks of medal, and put the original coins back in circulation. These coins would circulate until someone weighed them; If you were the unlucky guy who tried to use a shaved or clipped coin, you were going to have a bad day.

This went on for about 2000 year until someone got the bright idea to ask Da Vinci to get involved. He thought about it while taking his afternoon constitutional and invented the milling process. Milling allowed us to make coins that were exactly alike and highly detailed. This also made it possible to add Reeding. With a hundred or so little notches on it's edge, it would be very obvious if someone tried to shave or clip the coin. Reeding was one of the first anti-counterfeiting and vandalism deceives used on effectively on money. Thanks to Leonardo, countries could now make money and guarantee it's value.

Fast forward a bit. It's now 1793. The United states has declared it's awesomeness to the world, and now it's time to printing money. Dollar coins, half dollars, quarters and dimes were made of either silver or gold. Pennies were made of copper, and nickels... well you probably can guess. Reeding was placed on any coin with silver or gold in it, where as copper and nickel coins weren't worth the effort.

In 1900s the United States decided that since we were now a super power, there was no need to keep putting valuable medal in our coins. By 1965, most US coins were made of common medals and had no intrinsic value. Instead coins, and dollars, now have their value defined by the strength of our national economy. (I'm sure this seemed like a good idea at the time.) So why do we keep the reeding on our coins if there is no need to protect the medals they are composed of? Because we want people to think that their money is actually worth something, like in the good old days. It's a tribute to times past. Of course now that you know what it's there for, those rough edges will probably serve as a reminder that your money isn't worth the material it's made out of. Sorry to ruin your world.

Some fun coin facts:

Coin:                         Number of Reeds:

Dime                         118
Quarter                      119
Half Dollar                150
Silver Dollar              189
Susan B.'s                  133 (I'm guessing her dollar gets less because she was a woman. They were sexist times.)