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Half dimes: tiny silver, not nickels
US half dimes (1794–1873) are small silver five-cent coins. They are not Shield nickels and not V nickels. Later Seated half dimes are type coins in worn grades. Early Flowing Hair and Draped Bust pieces are a different conversation. The series dies in 1873.
A half dime is a US five-cent silver coin, 1794 through 1873. It is smaller than a dime. The reverse says HALF DIME. It is not a nickel. Nickels are copper-nickel and start with the Shield in 1866.
Types, in order: Flowing Hair (1794–95), Draped Bust, Capped Bust (1829–1837), Seated Liberty (1837–1873). The last years overlap the Shield nickel. Congress killed the half dime in the Coinage Act of 1873. Seated Liberty family.
Common vs the ones we pull
Worn 1850s–60s Seated half dimes: a modest type bid. Early 1790s and tough early dates: we slow down. Holed, bent, or plugged: little. They hide in dime piles and in the corners of a sorter.
Extra history
Five cents used to be silver because that is how the decimal system was written. The nickel five-cent was the cheap wartime-and-after substitute. That is why a coffee can can hold both a half dime and a Shield nickel and they are not the same bid. Three-cent silver is the other tiny silver in that drawer.
What a shop pays
Common Seated: type money, not melt (there is almost no silver in one piece). Early types: look them up. Don’t clean. Do not straighten a bent one.
People also ask
Is a half dime a half of a dime in value? It is five cents face. A dime is ten.
Are they 90%? Later ones yes. Early ones follow the silver standard of their year.
Did they make them after 1873? No. After that, five cents is a nickel.
More on the coin and money library.