A Mysterious Silver Coin

Silver coins and coins made of other metals tend to tell you who they are right away. What do we mean? Well, a silver coin will let you know how much it is worth so you don't have to guess.  You have probably never given this much thought. Our money has had a set design for years and you know what coins have what value automatically. Perhaps you have never even looked at a coin and realized that its value is written on it somewhere.While it is true that people who are blind or for some reason cannot read a coin, can figure out what it is worth my touch and feel, it is still part of a silver coin's job to declare itself.

So it is absolutely amazing to hear that the very first dimes in the U.S., our inaugural dimes if you will did not take this responsibility very seriously. The first U.S. dimes were produced with no information about their face value.

This first silver coin was something of a femme fatale. It had a "Draped Bust" design, depicting a woman (Miss Liberty) who has been described as being "buxom" with long hair. Perhaps the coins designers were so distracted by the beauty that they created that they left off telling people how much this early silver coin was actually worth.

How much can you buy with an anonymous silver coin, I wonder? Is it really fair to call this silver coin a dime, if it is not clear that it was worth ten cents? This coin was produced in the 1790s and at that time there were lots of different currencies in use in the still-new United States. Some people were still buying and selling goods with silver coins made in other countries. Surely, people at the time knew quite well how much this mysterious silver coin was worth, but this must have caused some confusion.

You, however, can avoid this kind of confusion when you sell silver coins and other silver objects to a silver buyer. Part of what a silver buyer will do it test your silver to determine its value. An online silver buyer will even send you a postage-paid envelope so you can send your silver for testing at no cost to you. Once they know how much your silver is worth, they will send you cash for silver.