Grandparents of today may still remember a time when they used “Eagle” gold coins, with one eagle representing $10, and its quarter-, half-, and double- varieties representing multiples thereof. That coinage took effect just three years after U.S. mint opened, at the same time as coins of lesser value were established. The eagle coins survived until the Depression, while its smaller brethren like the “half-dime” went away decades before.

On this day, May 16, in 1866, the U.S. mint introduced the replacement for a half-dime, the nickel-made “nickel.” Faced with a shortage of silver due to the Civil War, and pressured by the nickel mining interests, the U.S. decided to eliminate the gold coin and mint the new one.

The nickel’s early design made it strikingly similar to the five-dollar gold coins: same size, closely matching designs. It even said “five” on it, omitting the “cents”. All an enterprising huckster needed to do is gold-plate the nickel, and they would have a new five-dollar coin. Legend talks of one of those hucksters, a deaf named Josh Tatum, who became synonymous with the practice. It was in his honor that the word “joshing” came to mean fooling. As in, “You’re not joshing me with that fiver are you?”