# When did "your nickel" become "your dime"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 22, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085 "2006-01-22T06:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/41 "2016-09-14T01:13:59Z")
USPS First Class remains a hell of a good deal, by world and historical standards. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/42 "2016-09-14T02:01:59Z")
when I was a kid in the 80s til the mid 00s I was legally required to keep 20 cents on me for an phone call in case I got lost which was a regular occurring thing … then all of a sudden these no name phones popped up wanting anything from a quarter to a dollar … Last time I seen a payphone it actually connected to an operator that you gave a atm /cc number to complete the call it was completely moneyless They did have phones in LAX that you slid a cc in and then dialed those booths could call internationally also it had a small screen keeping track of how long your call was and the running toll and printed out a receipt when your card came out after you paid … ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/43 "2016-09-14T18:24:26Z")
> [@jasonh300](#): > > Oops…the Turtles sang “Happy Together”…the Beatles just sanded it. :smack: The Beatles never recorded it. (By “sanded” did you mean “covered”?) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/44 "2016-09-14T18:42:21Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > The Beatles never recorded it. (By “sanded” did you mean “covered”?) I do believe it was a joke drawing attention to both his errors. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/45 "2016-09-14T19:11:07Z")
On the “dropping a dime (on someone)” tangent, I have anecdotal evidence that among the youth in Orange County, CA, a rat today would be “diming (someone) out.” But the intransitive “dropping dimes” is also in use to describe the actions of the kind of snitch that would make this despicable act a habit. (A dime-dropper in an incarceration situation would probably be “PC’d up” - in protective custody - so you could taunt them with “PC!” as an insult.) And FWIW, back to the OP: the variants I heard growing up in the 80s were “it’s your nickel” and “not on my dime.” But I only heard those expressions from oldish dudes - never peers. And I never made the pay phone connection, even though I made many a local call for twenty cents (not 25) when I needed to be picked up from soccer practice or whatever. (I distinctly remember being pissed that I lost five cents when I had to drop a quarter to make a call back then.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/46 "2016-09-14T19:26:34Z")
Oh, the “on my dime.” That’s still pretty common to me as in, “they’re flying me out on the company’s dime.” Definitely not an oldish dude kind of expression. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/47 "2016-09-14T20:51:58Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I’m just barely old enough to remember the change to 4 cents. I didn’t understand why people were upset about it, but I really liked that new stamp with Lincoln’s picture on it. > > It’s kind of strange, for years people got upset every time the postal rate went up. Nowadays, most people probably couldn’t even tell you what the rate is. Of course I can! It’s, ummmm (_peeks at letter in today’s mail_) Forever cents! ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/48 "2016-09-15T10:54:34Z")
According to the Ngram viewer, nickel originated before WWII, Dime arose just thereafter, and they’ve been more or less in lock step ever sinc > **[Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=it%27s%2Byour%2Bnickel%2C%2Bit%27s%2Byour%2Bdime&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cit%20%27s%20your%20nickel%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cit%20%27s%20your%20dime%3B%2Cc0)** > > Google Books Ngram Viewer Very likely this was a regional shift. When I lived in New Orleans in the 1950s, the word “dime” wasn’t even in the vocabulary as a coin, they were very rare, and locals called them “silver dimes” if they ever grudg9ingly got one in change, since they were not useful for paying for vending machine purchases, phone calls, transt fares, or newspapers, which were all still a nickel. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/49 "2016-09-15T14:53:19Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I’m just barely old enough to remember the change to 4 cents. I didn’t understand why people were upset about it, but I really liked that new stamp with Lincoln’s picture on it. > > It’s kind of strange, for years people got upset every time the postal rate went up. Nowadays, most people probably couldn’t even tell you what the rate is. I think the ‘Forever’ stamps have made a big difference there. Until pretty recently, the rate increases were fairly frequent, and inconvenient: if you had a sheet of 37¢ stamps in your desk drawer, and the rate went up to 39¢\*, that meant you’d have to get a batch of 2¢ stamps in order to use them. Now, I get Forever stamps in quantity, and don’t really notice how much it is per stamp. Maybe the rate went up since the previous time I bought stamps, or maybe not, but it doesn’t matter any more than when the price of milk changes. - Just making these numbers up: I honestly can’t recall whether the rate was ever 37¢ or 39¢. ---
**Author:** ![Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/50 "2017-05-22T16:39:22Z")
Once I said to an Englishman, “That creep has a bogus handicapped placard; it would be a pleasure to dime him out!” “Do wot?,” said the Englishman. It’s a turn of phrase I picked up just listening to guys talk. “Dime” became a verb. It meant to snitch on somebody, as the previous poster said. But if you were “diming” somebody out, the nuance was that person DESERVED to be “dimed” out. Massachusetts payphones went from a dime a call to a quarter a call sometime in the late eighties. They weren’t all switched at once, though. I remember going to make a call in New Jersey in about 1988 and thought 35 cents was HIGHWAY ROBBERY! :mad: (I’m trawling the SD archives for my questions about life, the universe, and everything!) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/51 "2017-05-22T18:09:04Z")
A zombie of a zombie. Cool! In a 1963 movie called _Move Over Darling_, Doris Day is rescued after being trapped on a deserted island for five years. She asks someone for a nickel so she can make a phone call, and is told, “They cost a dime now.” Assuming a movie released in 1963 would have been written in 1962, I can categorically state that in California, phone calls went from a nickel to a dime somewhere between 1957 and 1962. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/52 "2017-05-22T20:52:06Z")
It was still 5c when I was in HS (till 1954) and probably went up while I was in college. In 1962, I was in New Orleans and it was still a nickel. Can’t tell you what it is now, though. Probably varies a lot. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/53 "2017-05-22T21:06:28Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Can’t tell you what it is now, though. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a public pay phone. ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/54 "2017-05-22T22:09:51Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I can’t even remember the last time I saw a public pay phone. The only place I can pretty much count on seeing pay phones these days is at airports. Also, I seem to remember that the demise of pay phones on the streets and in a lot of retail establishments was due to efforts to reduce drug trafficking. That is, pay phones became harder and harder to find well in advance of the broad ownership of cellphones. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/55 "2017-05-22T22:43:34Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > In 1962, I was in New Orleans and it was still a nickel. Pay calls in Louisiana were 5 cents well into the 70s. This was a matter of state law, or maybe a state commission’s regulation. Not sure of exactly when they increased it there and Google didn’t help. But they were still a nickel when everywhere else was going to 20 cents or a quarter. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/56 "2017-05-23T08:38:26Z")
I think that some of the power of nickel over dime is that nickel is also a metal, a dime is ten cents. There’s a certain power to the word nickel that dime doesn’t have since it goes back before modern mints and currency. Anyway, nickel has a meaning that dime could never have. Quarter makes more sense as something to survive, though it’s not used much anymore, at least it’s math. Sort of, as in a quarter of a dollar. Dime did enter common American language, though, some time in the last century. The jukebox reference is one such, and I believe that shoe shines once cost a dime, way back. Then there were those “dime a dance” joints, dance halls, so common back, well, back before I was born. When I was growing up a candy bar was a nickel. A lot of things were. The days of bottles of carbonated beverages costing a nickel had gone, and I funny thing I noticed as a child was that you could still buy a Coke for a dime in an old Coke machine or in a country store, while as one moved closer to the city Cokes and most beverages were fifteen cents. There’s also the expression, still in use in my adult lifetime, and it may still be, of “nickel and diming” someone (petty charges, surcharges and the like). FWIW: a few years back one of the digital television stations near where I live ran the entire Naked City TV series, starting with the half-hour first season from 1958-59. The first episode dealt with a robbery on the State Island ferry, and its title reflected of the fare, still quite low for those years: The Nickel Ride. ---
**Author:** ![dedanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@dedanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dedanann)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/57 "2017-11-11T01:21:19Z")
I made nickel phone calls from pay phones in Millington, Tennessee in 1973. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2017, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/58 "2017-11-13T13:46:38Z")
I remember the 1963 movie [_Move over Darling_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057329/combined) wherein Doris Day is stranded on an island for five years and is rescued by the Navy just as her husband, James Garner, is having her declared dead so he can remarry. As she’s coming down the gangplank in borrowed dungarees she asks “Say, has one of you got a nickel so I can make a phone call?” One of the sailors comments as he’s digging into a pocket, “Phone calls are a dime now; stamps are a nickel.” ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085/59 "2017-11-13T14:06:06Z")
> [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](#): > > Once I said to an Englishman, “That creep has a bogus handicapped placard; it would be a pleasure to dime him out!” > “Do wot?,” said the Englishman. > … > > 🙂 A comedian from Canada many years ago talked about the time he was in England during The War. (another interesting phrase). A large crowd was standing around and he asked what was going on. One person told him 'fallah fallah fallarrie". He says “It took me quite a while to realize some guy had fallen off a truck.” * * * Pay phones in Canada were a dime as early as I remember… so about 1961. Fortunately, that’s only 9 real cents. Then we can reminisce about the cost of other things. When I was becoming aware of money and what it did, about 1961 or 1962, Coke had just gone from 10 cents to 12 cents (but the deposit on those classic bottles was 2 cents), chocolate bars were also 10 cents, and the kid’s matinee at the movies on Saturday was a quarter. I was shocked when the first run of Mutiny on the Bounty cost 65 cents to see. Sometime about 1966 Coke had a giveaway - peel the cork from under the cap. My brother won a case of coke - those bottles in a 6-pack cardboard carrier. The were almost about to walk out of the store when my dad cleverly said “does that include the bottle deposit?” The clerk decide no, so they drank 6 Cokes right there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-nickel-become-your-dime/341085.md?page=2)