In the picture are two one cent coins that John S. Young, Samuel Meader, Abner Fish, Sjur Markuson, Erik Gunhus and all of my ancestors of this time period would have used. The big one is from the year 1853 and the small one is from the year 1860. A big complaint about the one cent coin prior to 1857 was its size. It was approximately the size of a silver dollar which became a nuisance when having to carry around a number of them. In 1857 the United States began minting the smaller one cent coin primarly because of the size problem.  ¶ 10:50 AM