How many ridges are on a quarter

So what's a reference librarian to do? Find the answer, of course. The first thing I learned was the technical term for the ridges or grooves on coins is reeding. Before the introduction of reeding, small amounts of gold or silver from coins could be chiseled or shaved away and the precious metal sold again or remelted and made into another coin.

The slang usage of the world chisel may even derive from this ancient practice. While quarters and dimes are no longer minted from silver, with the exception of special collectable quarters , the ridges remain.

Come in a take a look at the exhibit - you will find it in the first floor gallery. Table of Contents. What difficulties can be caused by premature birth? How much does it cost to publish research? Accept Decline Cookie Settings. I consent to the use of following cookies:. Cookie Declaration About Cookies.

Necessary 0 Marketing 0 Analytics 0 Preferences 0 Unclassified 0. Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies. The Coinage Act established the U. Cent and half-cent coins were made of cheaper copper. Criminals saw that they could make a good profit by filing shavings from the sides of gold and silver coins, selling the precious metal.

Before the 18th-century was out, the U. The reeded edges also made coin design more intricate and counterfeiting more difficult. The U. Reeded edges ruined this scheme, since a shaved edge would be immediately obvious and alert anyone who received one that something was wrong.

Why don't nickels and pennies have reeded edges? Nickels and pennies are mainly composed of inexpensive metals, so the chances that they would be tampered with are low. Before their adoption by the U. Mint, reeded edges were also used in the UK.

When the physicist Isaac Newton became warden of the Royal Mint in , he used reeded edges, among other means, to combat clippers and counterfeiters. Other European coins from as far back as the early s also feature reeded edges.

Coin clipping is no longer a problem, but reeded edges are still around, a centuries-old security measure hanging on in an age where people pay for things with their smart phones instead of digging out pocket change. The tenacity is admirable.