In times of great national stress, troubles are sometimes reflected in the coinage. It may be a new denomination or simply a change of alloy, but this is what makes coin collecting so interesting. The very history of a country is to be found in the coinage, and this is perhaps nowhere more true for the United States than in the great period of trial known as the Civil War. The origin of the monetary upheavals of the 1860s may be traced to the California Gold Rush of 1848-1849. So much gold was mined that the delicate balance between gold and silver was shattered beyond repair. Silver coins were soon melted or otherwise driven from circulation.
In 1853 Congress, recognizing that trade was nearly at a standstill, reduced the weight of the silver coins by nearly 7 percent so that they would circulate and not be melted. (The silver dollar, however, remained at its pre-1853 standard.) By 1857, the country was awash in silver and gold; there was so much, in fact, that merchants complained about the glut of silver filling their cash drawers.
To compound the situation, Congress decreed a new lightweight cent for 1857, to be composed of copper and nickel rather than the pure copper seen in the old large cents. The Mint struck vast quantities of Flying Eagle cents, again to the annoyance of those handling large amounts of these small coins.
The great amount
