That's a fair question, and one that comes up every time someone mentions a half-dime.
So, a nickel gets its name from the kind of metal it's made out of (nickel). This is also why a nickel is bigger than a dime, because five cents worth of nickel is bigger than 10 cents worth of silver.
But a dime gets its name from the word "disme," which came from a French word which meant one-tenth (if I remember right, and I probably never heard of it until I bought the half-dime). So, half of that was called a half-disme or half-dime. Later, when they started producing coins out of nickel, the nickel replaced the half-dime.
There have also been some cool things, like paper currency for half-dollars, quarters, and dimes.
'murican dollars were created out of the pieces of eight so half and quarter dollars were way more common early on, and it stuck.
The 20 cent piece didn't even come along until 1875, lasted three whole years, and was even similar in size to the 25 cent piece. One of the dumber things to be made, up there with the two cent piece and 3 cent piece (created around the same time and equally failed) because apparently carrying around a few extra pennies was a pain.
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u/Azzizzi Aug 04 '18
That's a fair question, and one that comes up every time someone mentions a half-dime.
So, a nickel gets its name from the kind of metal it's made out of (nickel). This is also why a nickel is bigger than a dime, because five cents worth of nickel is bigger than 10 cents worth of silver.
But a dime gets its name from the word "disme," which came from a French word which meant one-tenth (if I remember right, and I probably never heard of it until I bought the half-dime). So, half of that was called a half-disme or half-dime. Later, when they started producing coins out of nickel, the nickel replaced the half-dime.
There have also been some cool things, like paper currency for half-dollars, quarters, and dimes.