The Capped Bust Dime: 1809-1837

The dime at present is not thought by the public to be worth all that much but still a very necessary coin in the marketplace. In the early days of the United States Mint, however, this was not exactly the case.

As a denomination, the dime had been suggested as early as 1784 by Thomas Jefferson but did not become a reality until the basic Mint act was passed by Congress in early April 1792. Dimes were first coined in January 1796 and even then there was little public demand for what should have been an essential coin in the marketplace.

In a manner of speaking, the dime was used by the public but in a different form. The Spanish silver 1-real piece, equivalent to 12.5 cents in the new federal money, was widely used in the United States along with the half real and 2-reales silver coins. It was for this reason that those who read old newspapers frequently find advertisements for items costing, for example, 12.5 or 37.5 cents.

Because Spanish 1-real pieces were widely available, very few dimes were struck in the 1790s for the simple reason that they were not a useful denomination. It was not until 1805, when there was a temporary shortage of Spanish small silver, that the Philadelphia Mint