The 12 Different Types of US Coins

The United States coinage has evolved alongside the country’s long and diverse history.

Whether you are new to collecting or are just curious, learning about the types of US coins is exciting. It reveals an interesting aspect of our history, culture and heritage. If you are a collector, familiarizing yourself with these coins can help you organize your hobby in a way that allows you to collect the most valuable coins.

A Brief History of United States Coinage

Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1792 to create the country’s first mint in Philadelphia. The early currency, particularly the dollar, was pegged to the Spanish milled dollar. The result was three distinct coin categories, i.e. copper, silver and gold.

That said, our country’s history of circulating coins can be traced back to long before we had an official mint. Before the Philadelphia facility, people used foreign and locally made coins. Spanish milled dollars, German thalers, British pounds, and other smaller coins made by the various colonies were primarily in circulation during the Colonial Period. Following the Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation allowed the various states to create their own coins and coinage system. However, this liberal idea led to a lot of confusion and made inter-state trading cumbersome, as the same coin would be worth a different amount from one state to another.

The passage of the Coinage Act sought to end this confusion by establishing a national coinage that all states would use.

Here are the 12 different types of US Coins...

1. Half Cent

• The half-cent was the first and smallest currency the United States Mint struck after introducing the Coinage Act in 1792. First produced in 1793, half cents were made from copper at the Philadelphia facility.

• Production of half cents continued until 1857, when a congressional act stopped further minting of these coins.

• Because most of the early dies were handmade, United States half-cents have more varieties and errors than any other coin in the country’s coinage history.

2. One Cent

• The next coin to be launched in 1793 after the passing of the Coinage Act of 1792 was the one-cent coin, later known as a penny.

• Like the half-cent coins, cents have numerous varieties and errors as they were struck from unique, handmade dies.
• Starting in 1856, the mint adjusted the size of the one cent, opting for a smaller penny due to the rising cost of copper. The Mint struck its first cupro-nickel penny with a smaller diameter in 1856.

3. Two Cents

• In 1864, a Congressional Act changed several features of the one-cent coin, including the metallic composition and the weight. This same Act also introduced the two-cent coin.
• The United States two-cent coin was struck from 1864 to 1872. The coin bears a shield reverse resembling that of a five-cent coin. It is among the coins with the shortest lifespan in our coinage history.

4. Three Cents

• The United States Mint introduced the three cents coin in 1851, the smallest coin by size in the country’s coinage history.

• Until 1853, the three cents, which measures 14 millimetres in diameter, was struck in 75 per cent silver. The Mint then changed the coin’s composition to 75 per cent copper and 25 per cent nickel due to the skyrocketing prices of silver.

• The new copper-nickel three-cent coin was also enlarged to measure 17.9 millimetres in diameter. 

5. Five Cents (Half Dimes and Nickels)

• Half dimes were among the earliest coins struck after the Coinage Act of 1792. The Mint produced these silver coins until 1873.
• Faced with high silver prices, the Mint halted production of silver half dimes in 1866, replacing them with five-cent coins, aptly known as nickels.

• Nickels are still in production, with the most current being the Jefferson nickel with a large portrait on the obverse and the new Monticello on the reverse.

6. Ten Cents (Dimes)

• Also known as dimes, ten-cent coins were among the Mint’s earliest currencies. Struck in 1796, the dime is still in use today despite undergoing numerous design changes.
• The ten-cent coin closely resembles the half-dime design. These coins were struck in silver until 1964 when copper and nickel replaced silver as the metal of choice for coin production.

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