“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
This is my test post to see if I can still access authorship on Wolf’s new site.
May God be blessing us individually & corporately as we continue to fight the good fight on behalf of Truth, Justice, & the American Way. Especially as we support our beloved President Trump who has been such a strong & sacrificial leader for our beleaguered land.
Here’s a clever reminder to pray for our land daily…
Dear Lord please guide & direct these new Q Tree adventures!!!
That video above was from 1986, a banner year in my family. My brothers & I each graduated that year: one w/ an MA; one w/ a BA; & one w/ a high school diploma. How things have changed…
Even marred by masks & social distancing that last song still makes me want to stand up & cheer. Our land is worth fighting for to preserve Freedom for ourselves & our posterity. Dear Lord, grant us complete victory over the enemies of our land & our souls, in Jesus’ Name!
What a week. The Kraken was released. Sidney Powell made good on her promise. The wailing and gnashing of teeth as the Fake News Media reacted was epic.
Her lawsuits in Georgia and Michigan caused Hack Dorsey to wrench down on censoring the filings. Good Lord, what a stinking loser. Pathetic. These tech lords haven’t stopped the truth. We are the news now.
Rudy kicked butt at his Pennsylvania hearing. The brave patriots who spoke out about voter fraud made me proud to be an American.
We need to brace for the backlash from the NWO cabal, though. They aren’t going down without a final fight. They are all in, and that means a fight to the bitter end.
But I can feel that familiar feeling of…WINNING. It never gets old, and we have our great President Trump to thank for that.
And, not so incidentally, our President pardoned General Mike Flynn. Sidney Powell reacts. This was an indication to me that the Kraken has been set free to crush the cheating Dems. This decision came from a position of strength. Perfect timing. And the pardon was phrased in such a way that General Flynn can serve in government again. Innocent!
Well, I say we should drink a toast to Sidney. I’ll be hoisting a Brandy Milk Punch, a favorite of that patriot and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. Recipe here.
First though, just a reminder about our house rules. Make nice. Craziness belongs over at the UTree, not here at the QTree. Civility reigns. Rules here if you need a refresher or are new. We may be opinionated, but we do it with the highest regard for our fellow patrons and we never wish to cause the slightest worry to our patron, Wolf.
Back to Ben. Franklin was known for his admonishments to temperance, but the man enjoyed a drink, like many of the founding fathers. He liked his wine, and according to one article, “A brewer and distiller in his own right, he’s also famous for coming up with The Drinker’s Dictionary, over 200 euphemisms for getting tore up. Among my favorites: “Piss’d in the Brook,” “Wamble Crop’d,” and “Been too free with Sir John Strawberry.”
Heck, our first President, George Washington, had a still from which he produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey in 1799. He was known to put away four bottles of wine during an evening of dancing.
Thomas Jefferson imported thousands of bottles of wine from Europe. And can you say Sam Adams, who brewed his own beer? The colonials did not have access to clean water, so much of what they drank was alcoholic, from beer to mead to wine to hard cider and whiskey. Even kids drank a low alcohol content beer.
Remember the Tea Party? Ya gotta read this article. Is it possible that our revolution wasn’t kicked off in honor of tea so much as alcohol? Hmmm…that would make for some fun research.
At any rate, pubs (or taverns as they were called) played a big part in communications during revolutionary times. A tavern was a hotel, a bar, a restaurant, a post office, often a dancing hall, and an all around meeting place during colonial times. Interesting that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Democrat (commie) governors have been keen to shut down bars and dining establishments during the Year of the Covid, the NWO’s kick-off to their plan for complete world dominance. Cue Mike Myers, please.
And speaking of the New World Order, I remember former President George H. W. Bush. I found a video where he gives four speeches (the vid shows just the snippets) that mention the New World Order. Good God in Heaven, were we all just snoozing when this jerk was talking about this stuff?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=94gcYXDwIOI
I can’t help but think of his last years. Confined to a wheelchair, the old coot would grab women’s rears and grin like a demented monkey. A fitting end for someone who has done such harm to our Republic. May he forever be a potent reminder of the foolishness of the so-called elites, who sought to recreate the Tower of Babel in our time.
Our President is revving things up for getting rid of Section 230. It will be terribly sweet to see Twitter and the other tech giants get their comeuppance.
For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!
And just to finish up, wasn’t it so fitting and just in time for Thanksgiving that the Supreme Court slapped that insane clown, Andrew Cuomo, down? Freedom of religion!
Dummy post, copied an old post, comments disabled.
Shitstorm Saturday?
As usual I am writing this Thursday evening, so there’s a decent chance something Big, something that’s not just a Boom or even a Kaboom, but a Kaf*ckingboom, has happened between then and the time you’re reading this!
WordPress Still Sucks.
I decided to go back to the eagle from my first post. I just spent half an hour scrolling back to my original eagle from January 10 2019, because the image at the top of this post MUST be loaded as a media file on this site, and there’s no other way to do it but to scroll back through nearly two years of images and pick it. And it gets slower and slower and slower the further you go.
I *do* have the URL of the media file (I just had to go back to my first post and save it), but you can’t just type that in; you have to scroll to the picture and click on it.
I thought I’d save Wolf some space (since half of his media space is used).
So I finally get there, select the image…and instead it’s some blurry image out of the middle of a Q drop.
You can’t type the URL in, but you can add a new piece of media and make that the URL of the one you have. Yes, you end up with a duplicate image in Wolf’s media library, but I had no choice.
Fuck you, WordPress. Fuck you sidewise with a 12 gauge bore brush, for making it impossible for me to do Wolf a favor, and making me waste a ton of bandwidth and time finding that out. The moron who made it necessary to scroll back to select an image from the media file should be dragged down a dirt road for thirty miles.
This sort of thing irritates me, because I work in software, and I’d be fired for this kind of donkeyf*ck bullshit. Well, actually my boss wouldn’t fire me immediately, but he would if I refused to redo it right.
Here’s my attempt to insert something off the internet:
By the next time I do my Saturday post, the election will be over, and we’ll be going through absolute mayhem. Either the results won’t be clear, or they will be clear and someone will be very, very unhappy about it. Hopefully everyone is prepared, and also hopefully it won’t come down to Civil War II.
A Reminder Of Today’s Big Issue.
Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People...Our campaign represents a true existential threat, like they’ve never seen before.
Then-Candidate Donald J. Trump
Needs to happen, soon.
Lawyer Appeasement Section
OK now for the fine print.
Please note that our menu has changed, please listen to all of the options.
This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Political correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines, here, with an addendum on 20191110.
We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.
And remember Wheatie’s Rules:
1. No food fights 2. No running with scissors. 3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone. 4. The first rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government take your guns. 5. The gun is always loaded. 5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty. 6. Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. 7. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire. 8. Be sure of your target and what is behind it. 9. Social Justice Warriors, ANTIFA pukes, BLM hypocrites, and other assorted varieties of Marxists can go copulate with themselves, or if insufficiently limber, may substitute a rusty wire brush suitable for cleaning the bore of a twelve or ten gauge.
(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)
Coin of The Day
The Eagle, Part II.
In our previous post, I discussed the eagle, not the bird but the coin, with the official definition of an “eagle” being ten dollars. And yes, it was an official definition unlike “nickel” but very much like “dime” (look at one, and you will see it actually says “one dime” not “ten cents” on it).
For all that it was a full, official denomination, for some reason in the early years the US didn’t make them very often, preferring instead to make half eagles and quarter eagles. That plus the fact that any gold coin became subject to melting when the price of gold (relative to silver) went up in the 1830s, makes any eagle from before 1834 quite rare. Which brings us up to where we left off last time.
In the middle of 1834 the gold standard was reduced, and designs of quarter and half eagles were altered so people could readily tell the old coins from the new ones (and old ones were now exchangeable for a bit more than face value, which saved the ones that hadn’t been melted). But we still didn’t make full eagles.
In 1839, however, the mint had a new chief engraver, Christian Gobrecht and he was a capable artist. He redid the silver from 1837-1840 and turned his attention to gold in 1839.
And now, finally we had eagles again. This design is now called the “Liberty Head” eagle by collectors, and we used it for almost seventy years, which until 1979 or so was a record (we’ve now been using Lincoln’s head on the cent for over 120 years, and Jefferson’s head on the nickel for 82 years).
The bad news is, he didn’t do a new eagle design, basically using the motif that had appeared on the quarter and half eagle since the late 00s of the 19th century. Still, at least it does look like an eagle!
I had to struggle to find one of these in a picture…and I don’t know if it’s the picture or the coin, but the color just looks freaking awful on this coin. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been harshly cleaned at some point. But it took me a while to find even this picture.
The same basic design was used on quarter and half eagles, but when the gold dollar and gold double eagle were introduced in 1849-1850, the mint had a new engraver, James Longacre, and he put totally different designs on those denominations. (His major shortcoming as an engraver was that he had great difficulty getting lettering lined up properly.)
Coronet eagles from before 1866 are rare, and in many cases when you try to look up the price of one in choice uncirculated (MS-63), you will find a dash in the book…meaning there’s no such thing. For dates where such a thing exists, the price is stratospheric.
Now why would one care about ones from before 1866? Because in 1866 a minor change was made to the reverse, and those who collect by type (rather than by date) therefore want one from before the change and one from after the change.
Fortunately, after the change is easy, since that time span (1866-1907) has plenty of common dates in it where you won’t pay much more than the price of the gold in the coin. Of course you’ll have a piece with a date that starts with a 19 or maybe 1890-something, not a coin from 1867 (coins continue to be scarce until 1876 or so thanks to the after effects of the Civil War, but that’s another story–maybe I’ve already told it; I can no longer keep track).
The motto was not added to the quarter eagle, as the coin was deemed too small for it to fit. Nor was it added to the $1 or $3 gold coins that were being issued at the time.
So now we fast forward to Teddy Roosevelt, during 1906-07.
Roosevelt felt that our coinage was staid, and he had a point. He wanted to redesign our coinage to be much more artistic, and as a result we have coins like the Mercury dime, the standing liberty quarter, the walking liberty half dollar…all of which I have discussed in the past. But we also have the St. Gaudens double eagle and the Indian head eagle, both designed by Augustus St. Gaudens, a world famous artist at the time.
I had a choice between this picture, with awful color but good lighting, and one with good color that looks like gold instead of dull brass, but with the lighting head on so you can’t see the relief of the design.
At Roosevelt’s insistence the In God We Trust motto was omitted, both on this coin and on the new double eagle. Was he some sort of foaming-at-the-mouth atheist? No. He was a believer, and he thought putting the deity’s name on a mere piece of money was a sacrilege.
Congress didn’t agree, and passed a law requiring the restoration of the motto. Up to this time it had been something the mint and the treasury had just agreed between them to do. Now it was required by law on those two coins, and the mint was forbidden from removing it in the future, though it was not required to add it to coins that didn’t have the motto, which at that time were the cent, nickel, dime, and quarter eagle. (The nickel had had the motto from 1865 through 1883, but it was dropped with the change in design that happened that year, without anyone kicking up a fuss.)
And this photo, and our story, bring us to the end.
In 1933 a different Roosevelt confiscated our gold. He then devalued the dollar from $20.67 per troy ounce of gold to $35, which would be the official level through the 1960s.
People were allowed to hold gold in jewelry, and could even hang onto coins that had numismatic value (i.e., were worth more than their face value, to a collector). But much of our gold went back to the mint, which melted most of it and it’s now in bars in Fort Knox and other places. (The mint actually hung onto many pieces that were turned in that were of numismatic interest.)
A lot of our gold coinage “wintered over” in Europe and has been coming back home in the hands of numismatists ever since all restrictions on gold ownership were removed in the 1970s. I still see coin dealers offering coins that are coming back from Europe, today.
In particular, almost every 1933 eagle was melted at the mint. Any out there today are in the high six figures for value.
[Digression: For double eagles, none were officially released, though a few got out. They are officially considered stolen property (and the US government confiscated ten of them about 15 years ago), with the exception of one piece that our government apparently gifted to a foreign dignitary. That coin sold for seven million dollars in 2002. I did get to see that double eagle since I was at the convention where it was auctioned off, as well as the ten that were confiscated–the mint did not destroy them, it even exhibited them in Denver in 2006. It’s funny to think that I have seen and photographed (too badly to show here) every single 1933 gold double eagle that exists.]
So that is the end of the eagle as a circulating $10 denomination.
But I’m going repeat my rant/conclusion from last time.
You can, today, buy “eagles” from the mint. But they aren’t these eagles. The word has been redefined to mean either a silver coin with an ounce of nearly pure silver in it, with a denomination of a dollar (but they’ll set you back thirty dollars), or gold coins…with a tenth, quarter, half, or full ounce of gold, denominated five, ten, twenty five, or fifty dollars. (Yes, the quarter ounce should either be a fifth of an ounce, or denominated twelve-and-a-half dollars. This is the government we’re talking about here, it doesn’t have to make sense anymore.) There are even platinum and palladium coins. (Platinum is denominated 10, 25, 50 and 100–so at least the values are consistent with the weights. Palladium just has a full ounce coin, which is denominated #25, even though it’s more expensive as a metal than any of the others.)
All have a denomination, and each and every one of them would mark you as the world’s biggest idiot if you were to actually spend them at face value.
So “eagle” has lost its original meaning, at least when it comes to coins.
But in zoology, they’re still cool birds!
Standard disclaimer: I never show pictures of my coins, and in many cases don’t own anything remotely resembling the coins in these pictures. [This would be one of those cases.] Any prospective thieves should know I also collect other heavy metals–anything with a heavier nucleus would be unstable–and keep those a lot closer to me than the coins.
Obligatory PSAs/Reminders
Just one more thing, my standard Public Service Announcements. We don’t want to forget any of these!!!
How not to get your ass kicked by the police. Chris Rock in 2007
Granted an “ass kicking” isn’t the same as being shot, but both can result from the same stupid act. You may ultimately beat the rap, but you aren’t going to avoid the ride.
Remember Hong Kong!!! And remember the tens of millions who died under the “Great Helmsman” Chairman Mao.
中国是个混蛋 !!! Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!! China is asshoe !!!
For my money the Great Helmsman is Hikaru Sulu (even if the actor is a dingbat).
A link to my previous statement: https://wqth.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/dear-kmag-20201130-open-topic/comment-page-1/#comment-680960
That Statement:
OK – quick announcement. I will put up an article later, but I want to get people started a.s.a.p.
If you’ve ever authored on the old site, you have an Author account on the new site, under your old author credentials, which were imported along with everything else.
I’m asking people to go over and just try to do a fake article as a test. You can entitle it “Author Test – myhandle” if you want, or whatever you want to call it. Just see if your authorship WORKS.
Also, I took a step to make logins easier. I checked two boxes to let “JetPack” handle logins:
WordPress.com login
Learn more
Add an extra layer of security to your website by enabling WordPress.com login and secure authentication. If you have multiple sites with this option enabled, you will be able to log in to every one of them with the same credentials.
[ENABLED] Allow users to log in to this site using WordPress.com accounts
[ENABLED] Match accounts using email addresses [DISABLED] Require accounts to use WordPress.com Two-Step Authentication
We can always turn this back off, but hopefully this will make sign-ins by authors smoother.
Give it a try! I will put up a thread for comments back and forth with me by people testing.
Please keep comments here so that I can keep track of helping people get logged in, etc..
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both: Keep Making America Great).
Yes, it’s Monday…again.
But it’s okay! We’ll get through it.
Free Speech is practiced here at the Q Tree. But please keep it civil. Discussion of Q is not only allowed but encouraged. Imagine that! We can talk about Q here and not get banned.
Please also consider the Important Guidelines, outlined here. Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.
Our President is fighting for us night and day…please pray for him.
Wheatie’s Rules:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
For your listening enjoyment, I offer this composition from Roman Senyk Music, titled ‘Heroic Feat’:
Sometimes it’s good to take a moment to appreciate the wonders of Nature and their colorful splendor…such as the way the male of a species will display his colorful plumage to attract a mate:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Wheatie’s Word of the Day:
Vitiate
‘Vitiate’ is a transitive verb which means…to make faulty or defective; impair or spoil. In a legal sense: To impair or make void; to destroy or annul, either completely or partially, the force and effect of an act or instrument.
Pronounced: Vishy-ate.
Used in a sentence:
The Supreme Court ruled in 1878 that “Fraud vitiates every thing…”, so this should apply to the massive fraud that the perfidious Democrats have committed in this election.
“I will be in Georgia on Saturday.” -President Trump
BUT WAIT……
WHAT THE ACTUAL FRACK!
No, the 2020 Election was a total scam, we won by a lot (and will hopefully turn over the fraudulent result), but we must get out and help David and Kelly, two GREAT people. Otherwise we are playing right into the hands of some very sick people. I will be in Georgia on Saturday! https://t.co/1ziqFq9S6O
I’m calling B.S. on NewsMax and “Trump supporters”! DUPES and CONTROLLED OPPOSITION!
Saved as an image, useful now for those of us who turned off Twitter embeds…..
Here is the deal.
Yeah, it is becoming very clear now how the DNC, the globalists, China, FACEBOOK, treasonous IC, and GEORGIA RINOs created a “comfortable RINO surrender in the middle”, whereby Georgia enabled CHINA to not only attempt to take out Trump, but to have an “insurance policy” on the Senate – that if the Democrats and RINOs conceded to a Trump win, they could STOP TRUMP with a typical UniParty undermining job on the two Georgia seats in the US Senate.
Oh, those DASTARDLY CHINESE COMMUNISTS ARE TRICKY!
Obviously, this has put not just President Trump, but Leader McConnell, in a very tough spot.
TREASONOUS RINOs? TREASONOUS social media? TREASONOUS MSM?
Thankfully, that PLOT has became completely apparent very early, enabling OUTRAGE by the base.
In a vary typical and Alinsky way, the UniParty has tried to respond to that outrage by pushing it to absurdity – i.e. – a badly intended BOYCOTT.
FUGGEDDABOUDIT!
No way.
NOW is the time to pour all our firepower on Georgia.
I can sense that the KRAKEN has broken a logjam. Dirty Dems and Deep State know that trouble is coming, and that the STEAL ON TRUMP will not go down. And it could be EVEN WORSE for the Deep State, due to Trump’s beautiful Executive Orders.
Rumors of Biden being talked into concession by the Deep State Fake Elections Intelligence Community Apparatus strike me as real. If Biden-Harris calls it off, maybe their allies don’t all GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL as the FIRST STEP of election reform.
Trump just spilled the beans in a radioactively and correctly aging tweet:
Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!
This big fight is to not only save the PRESIDENCY – it is to not only TAKE THE HOUSE – it is to under absolutely no circumstances yield the SENATE.
Georgia needs to be caught in a CROSSFIRE by both Sidney Powell nailing them on The Dominion Treason, and by the RNC on winning races and keeping China and Zuckerberg from stealing the Senate!
We will deal with him until he is BEHIND BARS. In fact, HE is our ticket OFF WORDPRESS. We are going to go after this Chinese SPY until he FORCES WORDPRESS to kick us off.
BYE-BYE, MARK THE SPY!
Ready for the fight?
BE AT YOUR PROTEST ON SATURDAY! TODAY!!!
It’s even BETTER if you’re not in Georgia, because we are going to bring so much pressure from OUTSIDE GEORGIA that…..
I start these posts by going back and grabbing the post from five weeks ago (since I currently have five different eagle banners), copying it, then editing. The old post is from before the election (October 24) and talks about Biden’s performance in the third debate.
Yes, that was fresh news only five weeks ago! And now we are in the middle of a horrific fraud mess and an almost-as-horrific refusal by lower level judges to even touch the issue. I’m not sure if the Third Circuit’s decision was proper or not given the lower court’s action (sometimes the normal rules of jurisprudence lead to perverse results), but Pennsylvania will be going to the SCOTUS for sure.
But so much has been going on, and so much has been said by people here about what is going on, that I almost feel like anything I could say would be simply superfluous.
Which isn’t going to stop me from saying something anyway.
My new pet peeve: 2024 offered as a chance for President Trump to come back, if this somehow doesn’t work out. Sometimes it’s even dangled as fruit to get him to concede for the good of the country.
The people pushing this line are either idiots, or they think we are.
Do they seriously believe…or do they just hope we are foolish enough to believe, that the cheating won’t happen in 2024 and Trump will have a fair chance to try again? On the contrary, after four years of Biden/Harris (mostly Harris methinks), the cheating will be baked into the system absolutely everywhere. There will probably be federal guidelines for elections by then, mandating the use of the new Hack-o-matic Voting Systems. (No doubt we will be reassured by the explanation that the name is in memory of Hitlary’s cough.)
But what is even worse, is that whoever runs in 2024, it almost certainly wouldn’t be Trump. He will be in jail long before then, and more than likely Epsteined. They have been calling him a criminal for over four years; once he is out of office they WILL prosecute. It will be as bogus as General Flynn but no one in the government will be allowed to care about that.
I have said it before, and I will say it again, this is for all the Chips. After this, GAME OVER. If we lose this, to such blatant fraud, 2024 won’t matter. Trump won’t matter. Politically speaking, nothing on Earth will matter. There will be no recourse within the system.
A Reminder Of Today’s Big Issue.
Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People...Our campaign represents a true existential threat, like they’ve never seen before.
Then-Candidate Donald J. Trump
Needs to happen, soon.
Lawyer Appeasement Section
OK now for the fine print.
Please note that our menu has changed, please listen to all of the options.
This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Political correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines, here, with an addendum on 20191110.
We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.
And remember Wheatie’s Rules:
1. No food fights 2. No running with scissors. 3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone. 4. The first rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government take your guns. 5. The gun is always loaded. 5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty. 6. Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. 7. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire. 8. Be sure of your target and what is behind it. 9. Social Justice Warriors, ANTIFA pukes, BLM hypocrites, and other assorted varieties of Marxists can go copulate with themselves, or if insufficiently limber, may substitute a rusty wire brush suitable for cleaning the bore of a twelve or ten gauge.
(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)
Coin of The Day
The Dime
“Dime” is not a nickname, like “nickel” or “penny.”
In fact, the five cent piece we call a nickel was the third US coin to get a nickname alluding to the nickel in it, and of course, there are collectors who will scold you for calling the one cent piece a “penny.”
But the dime is not such a word; it’s the real name of the coin and the denomination. Look at one, if you’ve got one, and see that the coin says “ONE DIME” on it. This has been true since 1837 so I felt pretty safe in writing the previous sentence. (A smart-aleck would have to have dug up a capped bust or draped bust dime to give me crap about it.)
Five weeks ago I quoted Section 9 of the mint act of April 2, 1792, in talking about the eagle. Continuing on from where I left off, it gives the specifications of dollar coins, half dollars, quarter dollars, and dismes.
Dismes–each to be of the value of one tenth of a dollar or unit, and to contain thirty seven grains and two sixteenths parts of a grain of pure, or forty one grains and three fifths parts of a grain of standard silver.
Act of April 2, 1792, Dection 9
The “grains” in question are the same grains you use at your reloading desk and the same grains bullets are weighed in. 1/7000th of a avoirdupois or “grocery” pound, but in this case, with silver, the troy pound, which was the original pound, is still used, and there are 5760 of the same grains in one of those.
(24 grains = a pennyweight, 20 pennyweights or 480 grains equals a troy ounce, 12 troy ounces or 240 pennyweights to the troy pound, and it is not a coincidence that there were also 240 British pennies to the British pound sterling before “decimalisation” in the early 1970s.)
37 2/16ths grains of pure silver in 41 3/5ths grains of coin metal (the remainder being copper) of course works out to that abominable 1485/1664ths fine standard we used until 1837. (Multiply both numbers by 40 to see this.)
But the most notable thing about what I quoted was the word “disme.” Not only does that make the word legal, it means we apparently don’t spell it right today! What’s with that S?
I’m not sure, to be honest, where that S came from. French? My one quick poke on the internet says disme comes from an “old” English word for “tenth” which in turn came from “old” French. I put old in quotes there, because “Old English” has a very specific meaning–the English language before 1066 and the Norman conquest, and I doubt my source meant that. (For one thing, no self-respecting Englishman from 1065 would ever borrow a word from the French, though he might be willing to borrow from Scandinavian languages.) So I think it’s better to call it an “archaic” English word for “tenth” that we probably borrowed sometime before 1500, bringing it into “Middle” English. (Shakespeare and the King James Bible, by the way, are both written in early Modern English, believe it or not, though many of the usages in the KJV were a bit archaic even in 1610; they deliberately chose to do that to make the work sound more impressive, and they succeeded. As for real Middle English, if you want a sample, read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the original and recognize that most of the vowels don’t sound the same as they did back then.)
Nor do I even know how “disme” was pronounced. A lot of people go with “deem,” and others say it was just like “dime”, either way that pesky S was silent. Otherwise it would sound like “Disney” with an M.
Did we ever issue a coin that says “Disme” on it? Sort of. In 1792 about 1500 “half dismes” were issued, and those are very controversial coins. Technically the US mint couldn’t issue silver that year because there were no people there who had raised the required $10,000 (!) bond to handle gold and silver. This should be unsurprising as this was a yuge amount of money back then. (This wasn’t solved until 1794 by amendment to the act of 1792, lowering the bond to a smaller amount, probably $5000 but my sources are unclear.)
So what was the US doing issuing silver half dames in 1792? Apparently they were done under the authority of an act passed under the Articles of Confederation. But this is being argued over presently. One side maintains those half dismes were illegal.
Also some people regard those half dismes as pattern (experimental) pieces rather than regular issue coins
There are also three known examples of full “Dismes” issued at about the same time, these are universally regarded as patterns. Another fifteen made out of copper are known as well; those are definitely patterns. (Patterns were often made out of a cheaper metal than a normal coin would be.)
Once we got past the bond issue, though, surely dismes could be issued with alacrity, though, right?
Well, they could be. But they weren’t.
The Mint was run as a public service in those days. You brought some raw silver in (or old coins from some other country, or silverware). You deposited it. A couple of weeks later you could go back and pick up silver coins, very likely made from your silver. This was done free of charge. If you wanted coins immediately, you had to pay a fee (less than one percent), because you were basically bumping yourself to the front of the line and getting someone else’s silver. But the point is, if you deposited silver, you could specify how you wanted it. (After 1795 the mint could charge a fee for dealing with below-standard gold and silver, and could refuse small deposits.)
And apparently almost no one wanted dismes. The first silver dollars were made in 1794. The first dimes were made in 1796-1797 and they had that “cormorant” Eagle on the reverse.
These coins were approximately 19mm in diameter, compare to our modern dime’s diameter of 17.9 millimeters. (Also compare this to our modern nickel’s 20.5mm diameter.) I say approximately 19mm because no two coins were exactly the same diameter, nor would they necessarily be perfectly circular, because there was no “collar” in the press. The collar (when present) surrounds the rim of the coin and prevents it from “squishing” out as the press compresses the blank silver round. Today the collar puts the reeding into the coin. Back then any reeded or lettered edge had to be put on the blank with a castaing machine, before the coin was struck. (This was true of all of our early coins, which is why early coins all tend to be wider than the same denominations from later years.)
Then in 1798, 1800-1805, and 1807 you had heraldic eagle reverses, and the 1798, 1805 and 1807 are much more common than the other years.
Needless to say this isn’t to the same scale as the previous picture!
Then there was another design change, to the capped bust design, and dismes were issued less frequently, at least at first, in 1809, 1811, 1814, 1820-1825, and then finally with some consistency from 1827 onwards.
Note the very uneven strike on this, parts of STATES is a weak impression,
Starting in 1828, the mint introduced a new piece of high-tech equipment, a press that struck the coins “in collar.” At that point the dime assumed its modern 17.9 mm diameter.
Capped Bust dime, last (partial) year of issue. During 1837 the Liberty Seated design began and the words “ONE DIME” were prominent on the reverse.
But none of these dismes had the denomination spelled out. Many had no indication of denomination at all (you weighed the coins to determine what they were), others just said “10” or “10 C.” As surprising as the idea of not putting a denomination on a coin (even Russia was doing that back then) was the idea of making no dismes for five solid years (1815-1819 inclusive).
(Maybe, though we shouldn’t laugh too hard. We seem to have had problems with dime supplies recently–the Walmarts here would not let you pay with cash, or get cash back in the self service checkouts for months, apparently because they simply couldn’t find any dimes to put into the machines…and like a crappy printer that won’t print a black and white document because it’s out of magenta ink, they therefore wouldn’t even give you twenties as cash back.)
I don’t know when the disme became the dime, because the entire period from 1793-1837 left us with no coins on which we could see the word abbreviated, much less spelled out. (And half dismes/dimes are no help for the same reason.) I have found no reference to the denomination in any mint act between those two dates, which might help pin it down.
The Liberty Seated series has no less than six sub-types, the first is this one with no stars on the obverse.
Stars were added, and then more drapery was added to Liberty’s elbow. This was not done simultaneously, though, the stars were added during 1838 and the drapery during 1840, so there are “with stars no drapery” coins out there as well (I’ll spare you that one)
This coin has little arrowheads on either side of the date. This was done to mark a weight change in 1873, and continued in 1874. (The weight change was early in the year, so you will see some 1873 dimes with no arrowheads. A 1873 dime made without the arrowheads in Carson City sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars a few years ago.) There was another time this was done in the 1850s, with coins from mid 1853 through the end of 1855 sporting the arrowheads as well.
After this point we went through coins I have covered already, the Barber dime (1892-1916), the mercury dime 1916-1945, and of course we all know the Roosevelt dime (1946-1964 silver, 1965-today clad crap).
Obligatory PSAs/Reminders
Just one more thing, my standard Public Service Announcements. We don’t want to forget any of these!!!
How not to get your ass kicked by the police. Chris Rock in 2007
Granted an “ass kicking” isn’t the same as being shot, but both can result from the same stupid act. You may ultimately beat the rap, but you aren’t going to avoid the ride.
Remember Hong Kong!!! And remember the tens of millions who died under the “Great Helmsman” Chairman Mao.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3tnH4FGbd0%3F
I hope this guy isn’t rotting in the laogai somewhere!
中国是个混蛋 !!! Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!! China is asshoe !!!
For my money the Great Helmsman is Hikaru Sulu (even if the actor is a dingbat).
NOTE: Although this after-dinner well-wishing was delayed due to a long list of post-Thanksgiving-dinner chores and duties, performed meticulously and faithfully, it’s still Thanksgiving in California, so here we go.
I just wanted to take this opportunity, after a great Thanksgiving dinner, [Trump supporters all, complete with two pilgrims, an Indian of friendly but mysterious nature, a recent immigrant, and a shaggy dog, maybe not a crowd, but surely in violation of some ridiculous COMVID / SQUADPOX / CHINA VIRUS mandate], to say THANKS TO GOD for our arrival on these EPIK New World shores!
Indeed, as we sat down to our Thanksgiving dinner this evening, we almost “dove in” per the customs of one anonymous diner, were it not for my insistence that we should STOP FIRST to name the things for which we were thankful.
[You will see that, as a PRAYER WARRIOR, I’m LAZY but CUNNING. It’s part of being OLD.]
The personal things went first – lives spared, diseases healed – and then the allegedly bigger things – peace preserved, wars averted. A few generalities – good health and economic blessing. But then the biggie, on which all agreed.
Four years of President Donald Trump. Four years of the greatest president in our lifetimes, against the will of every villain on Earth.
Everybody else seemed ready to say THAT was it – we’re THANKFUL – now let’s eat!
But I could sense that people were worried – that it was “just” four years of President Trump, so I said “WAIT!”
I don’t remember my exact words, missing a few articles and prepositions, and decidedly shortened for the mixed English abilities of our motley American troupe. Half words – half facial expressions – half intuition and half innuendo – as some languages actually are. However, rest assured that these words were both intended and in fact received as the following message.
“It is by the POWER of our THANKS TO GOD for the PAST, that the FUTURE BRIGHTENS. It is by our PRAYERS OF THANKS for what we have RECEIVED, that we might be blessed with MORE. If we want FOUR MORE YEARS of President Donald J. Trump, then – by all means – we must be THANKFUL for the FOUR GREAT YEARS that we have already had!“
With that, we all – quite spontaneously – smiled and held forth our clasped hands, earnestly in prayer, in our somewhat “diverse” faiths in God. I could feel the quiet spirit of true MAGA working among us, and with great confidence, we bowed our heads toward each other, and smiled in full faith. Thankful for the past. Confident in our future. Even our “dive-in diner” uttered a vocal prayer rarely heard.
Note that I did NOT say “we must vow to endeavor to persevere more years of THE BAD CHIEFS OF THE SWAMP.”
Rest assured, Pilgrims and Patriots. America – like God – is with us.
W
PS – There is a hidden joke in here which may not become apparent for a long time. If you figure all or part of it out, just smile! Thanks to Nor’easter for the inspiration of the “endeavor to persevere” theme!
