Interesting U.S. Coins Trivia Quiz

Answer: The 1851 silver 3 cent piece

The 3 cent piece is called a Trime. There was a silver shortage at the time and small denomination circulating coinage was badly needed. Making the Trime with only 86% of a full 3 cents worth of silver kept it from being melted. Three cents was also the postage rate and one of the purposes of the coin was to buy a stamp with it. The coin continued to be made until 1873.

Answer: Half Dollar

At around 28 or 29 mm, the large cent was truly large. The modern quarter is 24.3 mm and the Kennedy half is 30.6 mm. The coin weighed 10.9 grams, nearly the double a modern quarter's 5.67 grams. Imagine carrying around 6 or 7 extra pennies in your pocket back then!

Answer: 1877

In 1877 only 852,000 Indian Heads were minted. 1859 and 1909 were the first and last years the coin was minted. 1907 was the year of highest mintage at 108,137,143. If the Indian girl on the obverse doesn't look very Indian to you there is a good reason for that. Designer James B. Longacre modeled the girl after a Greco-Roman sculpture titled "Crouching Venus" first created at least 1800 years ago.

Answer: 1673-1936

In 1673 explorers Joliet and Marquette explored the upper Mississippi river, including northern Illinois and Wisconsin. Why this was on the coin instead of a more logical 1836 is a puzzle in itself.
Between 1892 and 1954, commemorative coins for 53 different events were produced. In 1939 the practice of producing commemorative coins was halted by an act of Congress due to the many abuses made by private distributors. Three exceptions were made to honor the Iowa 1946 centennial, Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. Commemorative coin production resumed in 1982.

Answer: Stella

The Eagle and Double Eagle are $10 and $20 gold coins. The Buffalo is a type of nickel. The Stella, made in 1879 and 1880, was supposed to be used for foreign exchange by U.S. travelers, but its $4 face value was awkward to convert into any other currency.

In any case, the $20 double eagle was already widely used by travelers. No one knows exactly how many $4 Stellas were made but the number is probably about 500.

Answer: A 3 legged buffalo nickel

The 3 legged nickel was the result of the reverse die sustaining some damage in the form of clash marks when the obverse and reverse die smashed together without a blank between them. A mint employee polished the reverse die to remove the marks from the accident, but inadvertently polished off one of the legs of the buffalo.

This coin has been popular with collectors since its discovery.

Answer: Walking Liberty

Half dollars were common and widely circulated from the founding of the nation up to the latter part of the 20th century. The Walking Liberty, also known as the Liberty Walking, was a striking design made from 1916 to 1947. Many consider it the most beautiful half dollar the United States ever made.

The Liberty Head or Barber half only showed the head of Lady Liberty and preceded the Walking Liberty. The Franklin and Kennedy halves came later and honored founding father Ben Franklin and president John F. Kennedy.

Answer: gold

Executive order 6102, signed by President Roosevelt in 1934 made it illegal for U.S. citizens to own more than $100 worth of gold coins. This was mostly done to raise the price of gold and save the economy in the midst of a serious depression. The 445,500 $20 double eagles dated 1933 had not been released from the mint when the order was signed and they effectively became illegal to own. Almost all of them were melted. Two of them were officially saved and sent to museums and at least another 20 have appeared over the years.

There 20 were presumed to have been smuggled out of the mint by mint employees, causing a number of legal battles over ownership.

Answer: dime

The Roosevelt dime was created in 1946 to honor recently deceased President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Aside from changing the composition from 90% silver to a copper nickel clad composition in 1965 and a few minor die adjustments, the coin looks essentially the same on both sides in 2019.

The cent acquired a Lincoln Memorial reverse in 1959 and underwent commemorative design changes in 2009. The current 2019 design is a shield reverse. The nickel had a 2 year commemorative design in 2004 and 2005 with a major redesign of Jefferson's portrait in 2006.

The quarter, half dollar and dollar were altered for the bicentennial in 1976. In addition, there were no dollar coins minted in 1946, the kennedy half was issued in 1964 and the state quarter program began in 1999.

Answer: octagonal

While there were octagonal California and Colorado gold coins produced by private assay companies to relieve local coin shortages, the 1915 S Panama-Pacific coin is the only octagonal coin issued by the U.S. mint. They were available for purchase at the 1915 Panama-pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco, but the $50 cost made it too expensive for the average person.

The mint produced 1500 of the octagonal coins, but only 645 were sold. The unsold coins were melted for their gold by the mint.