Colonial Issues

History

The English colonies operated for well over a century without a coinage of their own, relying on foreign silver, commodity money and whatever locally made pieces circulated by custom or by local authority. The category assembled under this heading takes in everything struck in, struck for, or circulating in North America before 1793, along with a handful of pieces struck outside the federal Mint into the early nineteenth century. Its earliest component is the Sommer Islands issue of about 1616, made for Bermuda; its first coinage authorized on American soil came on May 26, 1652, when the Massachusetts General Court empowered the Boston goldsmith John Hull to set up a mint. That authorization has been read as more than an anti-counterfeiting measure, since Massachusetts declared itself an independent commonwealth on October 29, 1652, and the NE pieces were the first coins of that declaration. The 1792 endpoint marks the year the United States began exercising the sovereign right to issue its own coins, with pattern pieces in 1792, copper in 1793, silver in 1794 and gold in 1795.

Details

There is no single designer, alloy or authorizing act behind this material, which was produced by colonial governments, British royal patentees, individual states, private companies and silversmiths on two continents. PCGS divides it into nine sub-categories: Pre-1776 Private and Regional Issues (1616-1766), French Colonies (1670-1767), Post-1776 States Coinage (1776-1788), Post-1776 Private and Regional Issues (1778-1820), Proposed National Issues (1776-1787), Washington Pieces (1783-1800), Libertas Americana Medals (1781), Colonial Restrikes and Fantasies, and Regulated Gold (1725-1825). Metals run from brass and lightly silvered copper on the Sommer Islands pieces, through the silver threepence, sixpence and shilling of Hull's Boston mint, where Robert Sanderson served as his assistant, to the copper of William Wood's patent issues and the gold of Ephraim Brasher's doubloons. Wood held two grants from George I, the second dated July 12, 1722, covering 300 tons of coppers for the North American colonies over fourteen years, while the Fugio contract of April 21, 1787 called for 300 tons of copper struck to the federal standard. Several sub-categories extend past the 1792 date in the category label, and the PCGS Set Registry accordingly uses a 1616-1820 span for its complete design set of early American coins and tokens.

Features

The Sommer Islands pieces carry a hog as the principal obverse device with SOMMER ISLANDS inscribed, and mark the shilling, sixpence, threepence and twopence with Roman numerals, though they contained little or no silver despite those silver denominations. Massachusetts silver falls into four groups collectors pursue separately, the NE, Willow Tree, Oak Tree and Pine Tree coinages, nearly all of them bearing the frozen date 1652. Wood's Rosa Americana series appeared as halfpenny, penny and twopence, the first pieces undated and later ones dated 1722, 1723, 1724 and 1733. The Fugio cent, whose design Congress specified in an instruction of July 7, 1787, shows a sun above a sundial with FUGIO and MIND YOUR BUSINESS on the obverse and thirteen interlocking rings with WE ARE ONE on the reverse, and the concept is commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Brasher's gold falls into two styles, the New York Style with a mountain sunrise scene resembling the New York State seal accounting for seven of the nine known pieces.

Notable facts

• In 1637 the Massachusetts General Court ordered that wampum pass as currency in the New England settlements.
• Wood's Irish patent, indentured June 16, 1722, covered up to 360 tons of copper halfpence and farthings struck at 30 pence to the pound over fourteen years, for an annual fee of 800 pounds paid to the king.
• Recorded weights for Rosa Americana pieces include 52.8 grains for a 1722 halfpenny, 126.0 grains for a 1723 crowned-rose penny and 238.7 grains for a 1722 twopence.
• No Hibernia halfpence have been identified as host coins among the lightweight coppers overstruck during the post-1776 state coinages.
• James Jarvis secured the Fugio contract after a $10,000 payment to William Duer of the Treasury Board, then diverted much of the copper to unauthorized projects, leaving the cents underweight and unwanted.
• A 1787 Brasher doubloon of the EB on Wing variety, graded NGC MS65 and from the Donald G. Partrick Collection, brought $9.36 million on January 21, 2021, a record for any United States gold coin, while a 1786 Lima Style doubloon in NGC MS61 in the same sale realized over $2.1 million.