USA coins

It seems American coins must have been around since the arrival of the colonists in America, but although Spain established a mint in 1535, in Mexico City with some coins moving in and out of the colonies, it took until the early 1600's for America to adopt its own coinage into the money system.

Early American coins were in fact quite scarce. For one reason, Britain restricted the export of gold and silver to the colonies, and when it was sent, it was often hoarded. Because of this lack of coins, colonists turned to bartering and the use of commodity money, which was mostly farm product. Both of these forms of trade were undesirable, due to the risks involved. Sometimes contriving a way to pay might actually create a bigger loss and/or there could be spoilage of trade items. A known form of exchange was that of the American Indians Wampum, which was nothing more than a string of beads or shells, but this was really only useful when dealing with Indians directly.

Eventually, coins began to appear in 1651, when the first mint was opened in Massachusetts and John Hull began striking coins made of silver with a "NE" for New England. This was the beginning of American coinage. Later other mints sprung up throughout the colonies and the use of both these and the coins that arrived from Spain and came through Mexico were traded.

The first official U.S. mint was then established after President Washington signed it into law, in April of 1792.

Modern coins
US coins are given nicknames based on their designs like the Draped Bust, Standing Liberty, and so on. Sometimes, the US coins have monikers after their famous coin designers like the Saint-Gaudens coin.

Coin collectors can choose from a plethora of US coins. Generally, these coins are grouped as the following: 

• the numismatic coins (old or valuable coins collected for their high coin grade or proofs),
• the commemorative coins (special edition coins to mark a special event or public figure),
• or the bullion coins (coins made of precious metals)

The reverse (heads) design of the United States coins vary greatly in different denominations and coin series.

However, the typical obverse (tails) bears the coin’s face value, mint year, and mintmark. The words “Liberty”, “In God We Trust”, and “E Pluribus Unum” are also inscribed on most US coin obverse.

The sizes of modern US coins do not increase with their face values. One cent and five cents are bigger in size compared to ten cents.  50 cents is also larger than the new one dollar presidential coins. The sizes are kept to uphold the historical background of the coins.

So, the popular types of numismatic US coins to collect are the following:

• US dollars coins
• US Half dollars coins
• US quarters coins
• US One cent coins
• US nickels coins