Читать книгу A Guide Book of United States Coins 2021 - R.S. Yeoman - Страница 11

Throughout the years from 1620 to 1776, colonists were forced to rely on numerous European coins and denominations that had to be converted to some common value to facilitate transactions. Further compounding this mathematical obstacle was the variation of values from one colony to another. Merchants became accustomed to using the Spanish dollar and its fractional parts, the real, the medio (half-real), and other, similar denominations. In time, those coins became more familiar to them than the old English coins, which were always scarce. It was only natural, therefore, that when a national coinage was under consideration a dollar-size coin was the first choice.

Contracts, currency statutes, and prices in the colonies were usually quoted in English pounds or Spanish dollars. In 1767 Maryland took the lead and produced paper money that was denominated in dollars. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia soon passed laws making Spanish coins legal tender. The first issue of Continental paper money, May 10, 1775, offers further evidence that the dollar was to be the basic American money unit, for it provided that the notes should be payable in “Spanish Milled Dollars or the value thereof in gold or silver.”

The assistant financier of the Confederation, Gouverneur Morris, proposed a decimal coinage ratio designed to make conversion of various foreign currencies easier to compute in terms of a dollar-size unit. His plan was incorporated into a report presented by Robert Morris, superintendent of finance, to the Congress, January 15, 1782. Plans for a mint were advanced, and a uniform national currency to relieve the confused money conditions was outlined. Morris’s unit, 1/1,440 of a dollar, was calculated to agree without a fraction with all the different valuations of the Spanish milled dollar in the various states. Although a government mint was approved on February 21, 1782, no immediate action was taken. During 1784, Thomas Jefferson, then a member of the House of Representatives, brought in a report concerning the plan and expressed disagreement with Morris’s complicated money unit. He advocated the simple dollar unit because he believed the dollar was already as familiar and convenient a unit of value as the British pound. He favored the decimal system, and remarked, “The most easy ratio of multiplication and division is that of ten. George Washington referred to it as ‘a measure, which in my opinion, has become indispensably necessary.’”

The Grand Committee in May 1785 recommended a gold five-dollar piece; a dollar of silver with fractional coins of the same metal (in denominations of half, quarter, 10th, and 20th parts of a dollar); and copper pieces valued at 1/100 and 1/200 of a dollar.

In 1783 Robert Morris submitted a series of pattern pieces in silver that were designed by Benjamin Dudley to carry out the decimal idea for United States money. These are known as the Nova Constellatio patterns and consist of the “mark,” or 1,000 units; the “quint,” or 500 units; the “bit,” or 100 units; and a copper “five.” The unit was to be a quarter grain of silver. This was not the first attempt at a dollar coin, for the Continental Currency piece of dollar size, dated 1776, had been struck in such metals as brass, pewter, and silver. The reason is unknown for making a very limited number of pieces in silver. The more-common pewter pieces were most likely intended as a substitute for the paper dollar, and saw considerable circulation.

Congress gave formal approval to the basic dollar unit and decimal coinage ratio in its resolution of July 1785 but other, more pressing matters delayed further action. Not until the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had placed the country on firm ground and the new nation had elected George Washington president did the Congress again turn attention to the subjects of currency, a mint, and a coinage system.

The Massachusetts cents and half cents struck in 1787 and 1788 were the first official coins in the United States to bear stated values in terms of decimal parts of the dollar unit. The cent represented a hundredth part of a Spanish dollar.

The first federally authorized coin for which we have extensive documentation was the Fugio copper (sometimes called the Franklin cent, as Benjamin Franklin is believed to have supplied the design and composed the legends). This piece, similar in design to the Continental Currency dollar of 1776, was privately struck in 1787 by contract with the government.

Ephraim Brasher was engaged to regulate foreign gold coins and certain silver issues. This was done by clipping or plugging coins in circulation to bring them up or down to the standards published in 1784 by the Bank of New York. Appropriate hallmarks were then added for verification. Various goldsmiths who participated in this function included Standish Barry, John Burger, Thomas Underhill, and others. Brasher used a counterstamp in the form of the letters EB in an oval. John Burger also used his initials in an oval. Most regulated coins are scarce or rare. See pages 67 and 76–77 for additional information.

Alexander Hamilton, then secretary of the Treasury, reported his views on monetary matters on January 21, 1791. He concurred in all essentials with the decimal subdivisions and multiples of the dollar contained in the earlier resolutions and urged the use of both gold and silver in U.S. standard money.

Congress passed a resolution on March 3, 1791, that a mint be established, and authorized President Washington to engage artists and procure machinery for the making of coins. No immediate steps were taken, but when Washington delivered his third annual address, he recommended immediate establishment of a mint.

On April 2, 1792, a bill was finally passed providing “that the money of account of the United States should be expressed in dollars or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and milles or thousandths; a disme being the tenth part of a dollar, a cent the hundredth part of a dollar, a mille the thousandth part of a dollar. . . .”

Denominations specified in the act were as follows:

The word pure meant unalloyed metal; standard meant, in the case of gold, 11/12 fine, or 11 parts pure metal to one part alloy, which was mixed with the pure metal to improve the wearing qualities of the coins. The fineness for silver coins was 1,485/1,664, or approximately 892.43 thousandths, in contrast with the gold coins’ fineness of 22 carats, or 916-2/3 thousandths.

The law also provided for free coinage of gold and silver coins at the fixed ratio of 15 to 1, and a token coinage of copper cents and half cents. Under the free-coinage provision no charge was to be made for converting gold or silver bullion into coins “weight for weight.” At the depositor’s option, however, he could demand an immediate exchange of coins for his bullion, for which privilege a deduction of one-half of 1% was to be imposed.

President Washington appointed David Rittenhouse, a well-known scientist, as the first director of the Mint. Construction began on a mint building nearly four months after the passage of the Act of April 2, 1792. The building was located on Seventh Street near Arch in Philadelphia.

The first coin struck by the government was the half disme. Fifteen hundred of these pieces were produced during the month of July 1792 before the mint was completed. Additional coins were probably made in early October. There is no historical evidence for the story that Washington donated his personal silverware for minting these coins. A few dismes were also struck at this time or a short while later. Silver and gold for coinage were to be supplied by the public, but copper for cents and half cents had to be provided by the government. This was accomplished by the Act of May 8, 1792, when the purchase of not more than 150 tons was authorized. On September 11, 1792, six pounds of old copper was purchased, and probably used for the striking of patterns. Thereafter, planchets with upset rims for cents and half cents were purchased from Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, England, from 1798 to 1838.

David Rittenhouse—surveyor, astronomer, mathematician, and inventor—was named the first director of the U.S. Mint.

Several pattern coins were prepared in 1792 before regular mint operations commenced. Patterns are test or trial pieces intended to show the size, form, and design of proposed coins. These included Henry Voigt’s silver center cent, a piece smaller than that of regular issue. The small plug of silver, worth about three-quarters of a cent, was evidently intended to bring the intrinsic value of the coin up to the value of 1¢ and to permit production of a coin of more convenient size. Alexander Hamilton had mentioned a year before that the proposed “intrinsic value” cent would be too large, and suggested that the amount of copper could be reduced and a trace of silver added. The pattern cent with a silver center may have been designed to conform to this recommendation.

The cents by Robert Birch are equally interesting. These patterns are identified by their legends, which read LIBERTY PARENT OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY and TO BE ESTEEMED BE USEFUL. The quarter with an eagle on the reverse side (designer unknown) belongs among the 1792 patterns devised before regular issues were struck.

The Bank of Maryland deposited the first silver, sending $80,715.73-1/2 in French coins to the mint on July 18, 1794. Moses Brown, a Boston merchant, deposited the first gold in the form of ingots (February 12, 1795) amounting to $2,276.22, receiving silver coin in payment. The first coins transferred to the treasurer consisted of 11,178 cents on March 1, 1793. The first return of coined silver was made on October 15, 1794, and the first gold coins (744 half eagles) were delivered July 31, 1795. The early Mint was constantly vigilant to see that the weights of these coins were standard. Overweight blank planchets were filed and adjusted prior to striking, and many of the coins made prior to 1836 show file marks and blemishes from these adjustments.