Comment on 10/14/26- silver is at $58.70 this am by dickie

Parent Post: 10/14/26- silver is at $58.70 this am · In Reply To

dickie · 10/15/2026, 3:46:42 AM · permalink

My favorite silver coin is the trime, the tiny three-cent silver piece minted from 1851 to 1873. It's one of the more unusual coins in American history, and its connection to the postal system makes it even more interesting.

The trime was tiny, around 14 mm across, and the original version was 75% silver and 25% copper.

Congress had just reduced the prepaid letter rate to three cents. A three-cent coin gave people an easy way to pay exactly that amount.

So the United States created a tiny silver coin that lined up almost perfectly with the price of sending a letter.

Communication money.

Put silver on the counter, your message enters the network.

For a while, three cents was basically the packet rate.

Latency was terrible.

The first trimes were only 75% silver because the government wanted the metal value low enough that people would actually spend them instead of hoarding or melting them. In 1854, the fineness increased to 90%, but the coin got lighter, dropping from 0.80 grams to 0.75 grams. Interestingly, despite the weight reduction, the actual silver content increased.

James B. Longacre designed it. One side has a six-pointed star containing a shield. The other has the Roman numeral III inside an ornamental C.

![image](https://us-lax-1.linodeobjects.com/sojooo/comments/2835/1792036001880-22dcf65f3ae81cb2.jpg)

The New Orleans Mint also struck trimes in 1851. That was the only branch-mint issue in the entire series. Every other trime was struck in Philadelphia.

And speaking of coins and changing technology, Coinstar has gotten into cryptocurrency!

Some Coinstar kiosks now sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. You can purchase crypto using paper money at participating machines, or use a debit card through the associated mobile apps.

Unfortunately, you can't dump your pocket change into the machine and convert it directly to Bitcoin.

But there's something funny about checking a Coinstar reject slot for 19th-century silver coins while the machine itself is selling 21st-century digital currency.

In 1851, you could hand over a tiny piece of silver to send a message across the country. Today, you can hand over paper money to buy currency that exists entirely on a computer network.

We've come a long way from the trime. At least back then, you could drop your money on the floor and hear it hit.

5 bumps

chrisvpnet · 10/15/2026, 5:32:43 AM · permalink

2 bumps

Signature