Nicky, our eight-year-old granddaughter, is looking for one of the new Jefferson nickels. It’s the one that features Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is important to our American money, so it’s a fitting tribute that his nickel be updated.
In 1784, Jefferson proposed that United States money be based on the decimal system with a dollar being the base. In 1792, this was adopted by Congress, and the legal coins were dollars, dimes, and cents.

The nickel came into being at the end of the Civil War. We call it a nickel because of its nickel content.

In Colonial times, the English monetary system was the standard in America. There were 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pence to a shilling, and 4 farthings to a penny. Farthings were described as fractions of a penny, such as five pence. An estate inventory for an ancestor might have something valued at "1.15.10." This would mean the item was worth 1 pound, 15 shillings, and 10 pence.

In 1746, Richard Hubbard purchased 400 acres in Goochland County, Virginia for "Forty shillings of good and lawful money." The phrase "good and lawful money" could mean English money, or it could mean something else.

In the American colonies, there was a shortage of official coins. As a result, colonies developed substitutes. At the time of the American Revolution, North Carolina had seventeen different forms of legal money. In Virginia, payments could be made in pounds of tobacco. Foreign coins, while unofficial, were used. The Spanish coin could be divided into eight "bits." Two bits were a quarter, and four bits were a half.

Jefferson’s proposal for dollars, dimes, and cents took a while to put in place, and we find old moneys used for a number of years. In 1785, Henry Goodman and Thomas Barnes of Gates County, North Carolina, put up a marriage bond for "Five Hundred Pounds, current Money of the State Aforesaid." In 1810, James Carty and Sally his wife of Cumberland County, Kentucky, sold 40 acres to William Ryan for $166 Kentucky money.

In 1849, the final account for the John Carpenter estate in Rensselaer County, New York, showed these amounts: Amount of estate $159.19; Administrator Expenses $61.70, and court fees $15.03. An "Inflation Calculator" at www.westegg.com/inflation allows you to see what these amounts would be worth in today’s dollars.

Most libraries have a selection of interesting books about the history of money. Check the catalog for "history of money."

On the Internet, Cyndi Howells has a "Money" section on her CyndisList, www.cyndislist.com.