Two Cent Piece

The Two Cent piece was one of the shortest running coins in the United States. The two cent piece was only coined for 10 years, and the coin was the first to bare the motto "In God We Trust".

There was no United States coin that had contained any reference to a higher authority, and with the Civil War taking its toll on the country, the religious community pleaded with Congress to allow for some sort of recognition of the All Mighty. There were two slogans considered with different designs, and the In God We Trust model was adopted. Even though Congress didn't say hey lets do this, the motto began to appear on US coins from then on out.

Two Cent Piece

The two cent piece was the first bronze coins produced at the US Mint and was composed of 95% copper and 5% zinc and tin. It weighed but 6.2 grams and was a diameter of 23 millimeters. The designer, James Longacre, was the chief engraver at the Philadelphia Mint at the time, and had two designs for this coin, who was urged by the religious community to include God on all of the United States coins. There were 20million coins minted in its first year alone, and towards the end of the Civil War, it was nothing more than a Civil War trinket and the mint stopped producing them in 1873. The coin shows a shield encircled within a laurel wreath, with a ribbon above the shield barring the motto "In God We Trust". On the reverse was a simple wreath wrapping around the word 2 CENTS. The United States of America was written around the rim of the coin.