I’ve been around for 65+ years and am well aware that years and decades of use may change a coins texture and even weight.
But the 2026 coins feel weird to me. Especially dimes. Like there is less metal being used. Or something.
They obviously switch it up from time to time, else they would all still be made of silver. However, all the information I can find on coin-collecting sites and the United Stated Mint indicates that a 2026 dime has the same composition as a Roosevelt dime (net 91.67% copper, 8.33% nickel, 2.268 g)
I have no official factual response but I can agree w the OP that to me many US coins over the last 2-4 -ish years feel somehow lighter and, well, faker. More like a game token than a real US coin.
Admittedly I handle very little change vs, say, 20 years ago. But when I do in recent years I’m always struck as the OP is; something is different. ISTM quarters are the least different, but dimes & pennies just feel weird & wrong.
To me; YMMV.
Do you have a bunch of change? Just test them. I have—let me see here— a 1981 nickel. It weighs 5.03 grams. It is supposed to be 5.00, but this one is visibly dirty, so that makes sense. My manky 2008 quarter is 5.72g (as opposed to 5.67— or maybe this scale is off). What it is not is over 6 grams like a pre-1965 quarter.
I recieved two dimes as change the other day and thought the same, they just felt different. I had to check and see that one wasn’t a Canadian dime, but no it was a new one
If there had been a change in change there definitely would have been an enormous amount of news and discussion about it, and there has been nothing (other than this thread) so I’m 99.999999999999999999999% confident nothing has happened.
One change I did notice is that they don’t seem to be stamped as deep. But it’s been that way for a little while
Agree 100% there’s been no official deliberate change in the specs for the type or amount of metal, diameter, thickness, etc.
Ref @BigT just above, I wonder how much the artistic changes in what’s struck on the faces, how the edges are milled or rolled or treated however they are, etc., matters to the feel?
I do know that when I’ve received change in the past WAG 10 years it’s always a voyage of discovery: I recognize the coins as legit US money by shape & general size, but I’m always surprised to see what pictures are on them. It sometimes seems as though the traditional e.g. 1970s designs that every coin was struck from are now passé and the new artistic series-of-this-or-that coins are the majority (entirety?) being made.
I did just have a thought as I was typing the above paragraph. Which I’ll share as a random musing …
As much of society has gone cashless, and as inflation has rendered our coinage almost irrelevant in value, I’d expect that coins are less and less handled. Which is to say that each coin one of us touches is closer to new than would have been the case 20 or 40 years ago. New coins feel different from old ones; sharper & smoother. Is that what we’re noticing?
I’ve been handling new coins over 7 different decades. These coins seem different. Almost lighter. The dimes feel like play money
So have I. And I feel them just as you do: like play money.
The mystery is “Why?” And I’m as mystified as you; just groping around for an answer.
People said the same thing about the state quarters in 1999 even though there’d been absolutely no change to the weight or composition.
And they said the new $20 bills introduced in 1998 looked like Monopoly money, which in retrospect really wasn’t true at all.
I’ve been paying essentially exclusively with plastic for more than 10 years now, I’ve actually been forgetting what the banknotes look like. And I miss seeing the various types of quarters in change. This year I’ve been using coins more than I have for years: for photographic references. I’ve been closely observing the growth of some of my plants. Scrounging around for coins, I came up with a quarter to use as a scale reference. Then I was growing some cuttings in cups and needed a way to keep track of them and ended up putting coins in the cups, a dime in one, a nickel in one, an obverse penny in one, and a reverse penny in one. The quarter is 2022, the nickel 2013, both pennies 2016, and the dime 1969. Other than the changing designs, I can’t say I noticed anything about the feel or heft of them being off.
The US Mint really cant do that, because all of a sudden, the coins would stop working in coin operated machines.
And the US Mint sez no-
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coins-and-medals/circulating-coins/quarter?srsltid=AfmBOoooOLbEFZnfbaxPSdH2YLqHtQ6UqaRH5B2eMLMMsgfgZhNfFQ97
But I have found brand new coins often feel a bit different until they have circulated a bit.