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The article explains how limited small-denomination coinage, under a commodity money standard, made trade difficult when the smallest unit was too large, leading to the minting of the 3-cent silver trime.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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for the trime?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"Congress reduced the postage rate for a one-page letter from 5 cents to 3 cents in 1851, creating a monetary mismatch for making change with available coin denominations.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"Why was “monetary indivisibility” a problem for the U.S. post office?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"When the smallest denomination of money became too large for effective trade, people could not make payments efficiently, especially because widely circulating small denominations were lacking.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"How did the trime differ from typical U.S. coins of its time?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"The trime was legal tender with a face value higher than its metal value, functioning as a subsidiary coin designed to separate everyday money from precious-metal 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loweredthe postage on a one-page letter from5cents to 3 cents.The act changed thecharacter of American money.  \nThis Commentary tells how a conflu-ence of two events,the expansion ofsteam-powered transportation and theCalifornia gold rush,created a problemof\"monetary indivisibility\"for the U.S.post office,the solution to which was theminting of a 3-cent silver coin,the trime.Besides being the smallest of allU.S.coins,the trime had another distinction:It was the first legal tender with a facevalue greater than the market value ofthe metal it was minted from.The trimewas America's first step toward separat-ing its money from precious metals andthe eventual creation ofour \"fiat\"money—a money that is not backed byor convertible into any commodity.Thatis,a money with no intrinsic worth.  \n# ■ Railroads,Postage Stamps,and Indivisible Money\n\nIn the early to mid-nineteenth century,the U.S.postal service,the largest U.S.commercial enterprise o the era,had avirtual monopoly on mail delivery·between major cities,the large profitsfrom which it doled out in politicalpatronage.!'But the postal service'sstranglehold on mai delivery began toloosen with the great expansion of cheaprail and steamship transportation.Between 1840 and 1850,track in opera-tion more than doubled to 6,000miles,and the cost of shipping by rail fellnearly 40 percent.As travel becamemore routine,large volumes of mailbegan being carried by ordinary travel-ers and \"express companies,\"whichdelivered pouches and boxes of mailbetween cities.The postal monopolywas crumbling.  \necONOMICCOMMCNTCRY  \nIn 1845,Congress cut postage rates bymore than half,to 5 cents for a one-pageletter delivered within 500 miles.But bythe late 1840s,private express compa-nies were delivering mail between majorcities for 2 cents a letter,and the compe-tition from the private carriers pressuredgovernment postage rates even lower.In1851,Congress reduced the postage rateto 3 cents a letter.  \nThe drop in postage to 3 cents created amonetary problem.Gold coins were onlyproduced in denominations ofSI andabove because smaller denominationswould require coins so small that theywould be impractical in trade.Silvercoins,which were relatively awkward fordenominations of more than one dollarbecause they would have been too heavyto be conveniently carried,were onlyproduced in denominations ofS1,S0.50,  \nS0.25,S0.10,and S0.05.While coppercents and half cents were minted,the cir-culation of the coins was mostly limitedtothe major eastern cities and,even there,they were unpopular with the public.?Because the nation had no widely circu-lating money in a denomination less than5cents,many people would have beenforced to buy the new 3-cent stamps inbundles of five or ten.  \nThe problem confronting the UnitedStates with the drop in postage isreferred to as \"monetary indivisibility,\"and it is a common shortcoming of mon-etary systems in which the value of themoney is tied to a particular good(a\"commodity\"money).The problemoccurs when the smallest denominationof money is too large for people to tradeeffectively.  \nTo solve the monetary indivisibility cre-  \nated by the new 3-cent stamp.Congress  \nauthorized the minting of a 3-cent silver  \nJanuary 15.2004  \nYou might not have heard of thetrime,the tiny 3-cent silver coinminted in the United States from1851 to 1873,but it may have playeda big role in shaping the kind ofmoney you carry around in yourwallet today.  \ncoin in the same act.The coin,called thetrime,had a metallic value worth onlyabout 2¹2 cents,but was legal tender forsums up to 30 cents,making it our firstmoney with a content in precious metalworth less than its legal value in trade(sometimes called a\"subsidiary coin.\")The trime was 20 percent smaller thanour modem dime,and only about one-third of its weight (figure 1).While theBritish were on a gold standard and hadbeen using subsidiary silver coins forsmall chang","cbCaievzXXVhGsGP","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaievzXXVhGsGP","pdf",1215410,"English","# Railroads, Postage Stamps, and Indivisible Money\n## California Gold, Gresham's Law, and Indivisible Money","[{\"question\":\"What event in 1851 caused the need for the trime?\",\"answer\":\"Congress reduced the postage rate for a one-page letter from 5 cents to 3 cents in 1851, creating a monetary mismatch for making change with available coin denominations.\"},{\"question\":\"Why was “monetary indivisibility” a problem for the U.S. post office?\",\"answer\":\"When the smallest denomination of money became too large for effective trade, people could not make payments efficiently, especially because widely circulating small denominations were lacking.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the trime differ from typical U.S. coins of its time?\",\"answer\":\"The trime was legal tender with a face value higher than its metal value, functioning as a subsidiary coin designed to separate everyday money from precious-metal content.\"}]","The Trime - Railroads, Postage Stamps, and Indivisible Money - Commentary | PDF",1789970792,13]