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The Edge of Money

English £5 coin.  You can't see it in this photo, but it's got ridges around the edge. Most coins minted in the world today are round.  This is how it’s been for most of history.  But if you look at the edges of most coins of most countries today, you might have noticed they’re covered with even ridges.  The ridges don’t seem to add much to the aesthetic appeal of the coins, but they persist on every one of them.  But why are they there? If you’ve noticed the ridges, you might have noticed that in the countries where they’re used, they don’t appear on every coin.  In the United States, the two lowest denominated coins—the penny and the nickel—don’t have ridges.  (The nickel’s five-cent predecessor, the half dime, which was minted until 1883, did have ridges.  The penny never did.)  This is no accident.  The ridges appear on the edges of the larger coins to prevent an ancient problem: shaving. Coins have long been made of various metals like copper, nickel,