The smallest American coin, it's not worth much anymore. Without changing its size, the federal government, in its members' ongoing attempts to debase US money to enrich themselves, has debased the hapless coin from about a tenth of a troy ounce of 90% silver to 90% copper and 10% nickel. At this time, the rape of the American Dollar has gotten so severe that this current composition of the dime, along with the cost of minting it, is much more than a dime.
You can't buy much of anything for a single dime anymore, but in my youth, a single silver dime could buy a Coke. You'd get three pennies change. If you returned the bottle, you'd get two pennies more. You could buy two regular candy bars, each of which was noticeably larger than today's candy bars. A cup of coffee was a dime, most places. "Hey, buddy! Can you spare a dime?" was an oft-heard refrain down near the train yard by hobos, eager to get a cup of coffee or to but three or four of them together for a hamburger, fries and a cup. Or a bottle of cheap wine.
A local call on a pay phone (for those who remember pay phones) was a dime. The price of a newspaper went from seven pennies to a dime during the few year I was selling and delivering them. Even the politicians of the late 1950's were stealing value from the dollar.
A brand new dime was artfully designed and very pretty before the Mint decided to put the likeness of the evil Franklin Roosevelt on one side. Kind of ruined dimes for me. Even today, in my coin collection, I shy away from Roosevelt dimes.
Times change, and with an increasingly dictatorial government, they change for the worse. It won't be long before the quarter will be worth about the same as the 1990 Mexican Peso and will bear the likeness of the equally evil B Hussein Obama (or maybe Michelle).
Drop a dime on the criminal federal government regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
