Michigan Man Discovers Rare 3 Cent-Piece Sifting Through Dirt

I remember the first time I saw a two-dollar bill when I was a kid and I thought it was fake. Those bills always blew my mind because at the time they weren’t necessarily in circulation however, people did use them from time to time.

But there are actually a lot of defunct currencies that we’ve used in the United States that are no longer around, which includes a piece that I’ve never even seen before that a Michigan man discovered recently.

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He was doing some digging on the grounds of a building that had burnt down in the late 1800s when he discovered the old rusted three-cent piece:

The other day when I was out with my buddy Kyle (Wild Kyle on YouTube) I found something I never thought I would find! We were sifting dirt at an old building that burnt down in the 1890’s and I found this coin. It is a 3 cent piece made in between 1865 and 1889! The one I found is on the bottom and is in poor shape, but at least identifiable by the Roman numeral III on the back. There is another 3 cent piece called a Trime, but the design is different and it is smaller than this. Another coin knocked off my bucket list!

James Stottlemyer

History of the 3-cent Piece

This particular piece was somewhat popular when it first came out, according to the currency's wiki:

The three-cent nickel piece initially circulated well but became less popular when the five-cent nickel was introduced in 1866, a larger, more convenient coin, with a value of five cents better fitting the decimal system. After 1870, most years saw low annual mintages for the three-cent nickel, and in 1890 Congress abolished it. The last was struck in 1889.