Today, let us spend the lowly nickel. The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
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Someone recently handed me five freshly-minted nickels. Pretty coins. But it’s hard to think of anything they’d buy in our world. When I was a kid, during the Great Depression, a local drug store sold me a three-scoop ice-cream cone for a nickel. A White Castle hamburger cost only a nickel, So, let’s look more closely at this now vanishing coin.
It began in 1792: Our new government decided to issue a coin called a half-dime (Pronounced half deem back then.) It was struck in silver, and worth almost two dollars in our money today. Then inflation chipped away at its value. That value was around sixty cents during our Civil War. And people began hoarding the coin. It seems that its value as metal was more than its value as money.
So: The government replaced the half dime with a new five cent coin just after the Civil War. It was three quarters copper and a quarter nickel. They called it, the Shield Nickel. And we’ve called it a nickel ever since.
But the mint kept making half-dimes, alongside shield nickels, for another seven years. The half-dime was prettier and lighter. But also, less durable.
And the value of silver, had by then, dropped until all those hoarded half-dimes were no longer worth hoarding. They found their way back into circulation. Then a new Liberty Head Nickel appeared. It replaced both the half-dime and the Shield Nickel.
Now a new player entered the game: It was the coin operated machine. You could now use nickels to buy prepared meals from the slots in an automat restaurant. You could play the new slot machines. You could hear a song on an Edison phonograph. Or you could watch a short movie in a nickelodeon movie machine. Even the new coin-operated phone booths took nickels.
(...Put Another Nickel in, in the Nickelodeon - Theresa Brewer)
And so it remained into my childhood. That fine old Indian Head nickel – a Native American on one side and a buffalo on the other. I loved building model airplanes and the least expensive kit that I could buy sold for – yes, you guessed it – one nickel.
All of this spills over into other coins of course. It now costs around three times the value of a penny to mint a penny. By the time this episode reaches reruns, I expect Congress will’ve ended the production of pennies. Indeed, the whole idea of a coin having worth as the metal it is made of, appears to’ve seen its day.
And my childhood warning – “Don’t take any wooden Nickels,” – has long since vanished. In my day, that’d been a folksy way that we used to tell each other good bye. And so, I say to you, my good listeners, don’t you take any wooden Nickels.
(Theme music)
I’m John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work.
Some sources:
Nickel (United States coin) - Wikipedia
$1 in 1792 → 2025 | Inflation Calculator
Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels: Definition, Meaning and Origin
Penny (United States coin) - Wikipedia
5 cent model airplane kits - Search
Nickelodeon (movie theater) - Wikipedia
See also, Theresa Brewer singing “Music, Music, Music” about putting another Nickel in the Nickelodeon.
History of early nickel slot machines.
This Episode first aired on October 27, 2025.