10 Cents "Copper Disme" · “Copper Disme”

The 1792 Copper Disme: the dime before the dime

Before there was a dime, there was a disme. In 1792, in a half-built Mint on a Philadelphia side street, someone pressed a copper blank between hand-cut dies and made the first ten-cent coin the United States ever produced. Fewer than two dozen survive. Each one is a fingerprint from the day American money began.