Читать книгу A Guide Book of United States Coins 2021 - R.S. Yeoman - Страница 9

The saga of American money covers a period of nearly four centuries, from 1620 to the present. It began when the early European settlers in New England started trading with Native Americans for furs and commodities that could be exported to Britain. The furs, tobacco, and lumber exports were used to purchase needed items that could not be produced locally. Trade was carried on with the Indians through the use of barter and strings of wampum, which were fashioned from clam shells in the form of beads. Beaver skins, wampum, and, in Virginia, tobacco, soon became the commonly accepted local media of exchange for all other available commodities that were not bartered. The immigrants, in fact, had little use for coined money at first; but when merchandise arrived from Europe, coins were usually demanded in payment for goods.

Nearly all foreign coins were accepted for purchases. The most popular were French louis, English guineas, German thalers, Dutch ducats, and various Spanish coins, including gold doubloons and, particularly, the Spanish milled dollar, or piece of eight. The piece of eight continued to be a standard money unit throughout the entire colonial period. Even after the Revolutionary War ended (in 1783) and the United States Mint was established (in 1792), the Spanish dollar and its fractional parts circulated in this country with official sanction until 1857. One real equaled 12-1/2 cents and was known as a bit. A quarter of the dollar thus became known as two bits, a term that is still understood to mean 25 cents.

Because of the shortage of small change, large coins were sometimes cut into smaller pieces for convenience. Spanish-American milled dollars were often chopped into halves, quarters, or eighths. Fraudulent cutting into five or six “quarters” caused many to distrust these cut pieces.

Early Americans cut Spanish-American silver coins into pieces to make small change.

England consistently ignored the plight of its American colonists and made no effort to provide gold or silver coins, or small change in any form, for their convenience. The English mercantile system relied on exports from the colonies, and sought to control trade by limiting the amount of “hard” money paid to them. Under these constraints, the colonists were able to trade for most necessities only with England, and were left with very little coinage for trade with other countries. The foreign coins that were sometimes available were a valuable commodity for purchases outside the normal English trade.

As a remedy for the dearth of circulating coinage, a wide assortment of foreign coins and tokens was pressed into use. Only a very few were made in America prior to 1783. Copper coins known as Hogge Money (from their design; see page 38) were privately made for the Sommer Islands, now known as Bermuda, about the year 1616. The first coins minted for the colonies in America were made by John Hull in Boston for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The General Court of the colony granted him authority to begin coinage, despite the possibility of objection and recrimination by the king of England. Starting in 1652 the Massachusetts minter began producing the famous NE, Willow, Oak, and Pine Tree shillings, with their fractional parts, for the convenience of the colonists. This venture, which defied English law and lasted from 1652 to 1682, was in a sense the first declaration of independence for the colonies.

As time passed, coins and tokens of many types were introduced and employed by the colonists to supplement their use of barter. Lord Baltimore was responsible for a small issue of silver pieces struck in England in 1659 and sent to Maryland for use there. Mark Newby imported from Ireland coins known as St. Patrick’s halfpence, for use in the province of New Jersey in 1682. Coins dated 1722 to 1724, known as Rosa Americana issues, were produced by William Wood in England and were widely circulated in America. In addition, many British and other European coppers circulated there.

Enterprising Americans were responsible for some of the other copper and brass pieces that circulated during the 18th century. The Gloucester token, about which little is known, was one of these. Samuel and John Higley of Granby, Connecticut, made an interesting series of threepence pieces during the period from 1737 to 1739. John Chalmers, a silversmith in Annapolis, Maryland, issued silver shillings, sixpence, and threepence pieces in 1783. In 1786 and 1787 Ephraim Brasher, a New York goldsmith, struck gold coins of the value of a doubloon (about $15 in New York currency). Standish Barry of Baltimore, Maryland, made a curious silver threepence token in 1790.

Still other tokens, struck in Britain, reached our shores in early times and were for the most part speculative ventures. These much-needed, small-denomination coppers were readily circulated because of the great scarcity of fractional coins. Included in this category were the Nova Constellatio coppers and various English merchants’ tokens.

During the period of turmoil following America’s War of Independence, from about 1781 to 1795, still more English- and American-made copper pieces were added to the great variety of coins and tokens employed in the new nation. It was a time when Americans were suffering from postwar economic depression, a shortage of currency, high taxes, and foreclosures from bankruptcies. In the 1780s the Nova Eborac pieces (known as New York coppers), the Georgivs Triumpho coppers, and the Auctori Plebis tokens found their way into circulation as small change, despite their unofficial nature.

Collectors of colonial coins also include other pieces that are interesting because of their close association with early America and its first president. These consist of the Kentucky, Myddelton, and Franklin Press tokens, and those pieces bearing the portrait of George Washington. Although most of these pieces are dated from 1783 to 1795, many of them were made in England around the turn of the 19th century. Few of them actually circulated in the United States.