National Numismatic Collection - Introduction
The National Numismatic Collection (NNC) of the Smithsonian Institution is one of the largest numismatic collections in the world and the largest in North America. With over 1.6 millioin objects, the NNC contains many great rarities in coins and currency, from the earliest coins created 2,700 years ago up to the latest innovations in electronic monetary exchange, as well as fascinating objects such as beads, wampum, dentalia, and other commodities once used as money.
The collection emphasizes the development of money and medals in the United States. The core of the U.S. collection, consisting of more than 18,000 items, including coins of great rarity, came to the Smithsonian in 1923 from the United States Mint. Exceptional rarities include the Brasher half doubloon, the 1849 double eagle (first of the gold 20 dollar pieces), and two 1877 fifty dollar patterns. Other rarities are include the 1913 Liberty head nickel as well as all three types of the 1804 dollar, and two of three known examples of the world's most valuable coin, the 1933 double eagle, the third of which recently sold for 7.6 million dollars. Learn more about the collection.
Below you will find a selection of over 350 objects from the collection. We are working to expand and improve online access to additional objects in the near future, so stay tuned.
"National Numismatic Collection - Introduction" showing 9 items.
United States, Two and a Half Dollars, Proof, 1856
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Liberty with feather headdress, facing left. Reverse: Denomination and date within cereal wreath. Numismatist Walter Breen listed two proofs of this coin for this year. Apparently, he missed this one.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1856
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- NU*283645.0325
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0078
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, One Dollar, 1856
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Liberty with feather headdress, facing left. Reverse: Denomination and date within cereal wreath. James B. Longacre's second attempt at designing a gold dollar proved unsatisfactory. His concept had featured a head in fairly high relief, and it soon became apparent that the design did not wear well, and that high relief on one side meant an indistinct strike on the other.
- So the Longacre went back to the drawing board and came up with yet a third design, copying the new head from the one he had placed on the three dollar piece two years before. This design wore much better. It was retained for the remaining years of production of gold dollars until 1889. Fewer than ten proof gold dollars are known for 1856.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1856
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- NU*283645.0320
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0439
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Three Dollars, Proof, 1857
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Liberty with feather headdress, facing left. Reverse: Denomination and date within cereal wreath. Including this one, five proof $3 pieces are currently known for 1857.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1857
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.0537
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.0537
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Kellogg & Co., 50 Dollars, 1855
- Description
- Kellogg & Co. was one of the last private coiners to appear in San Francisco, but its double eagles were well made and well engraved. One of those responsible for the artwork was Ferdinand Gruner, another Central European emigre who may have also been responsible for some of the fractional gold coinage of the decade of the 1850s.
- Kellogg & Co. was an offshoot of a larger firm, Moffat & Co. John Glover Kellogg had served as Moffat's cashier, while the other principal, G. F. Richter, had been its assayer.
- Perhaps emboldened by public acceptance of their twenty-dollar coins, Kellogg & Co. put plans into motion to produce a fifty-dollar piece. Eleven coins, all proofs, survive to bear testimony to this idea. But no business strikes resulted, even though a competitor, Wass, Molitor & Co., did succeed in circulating such pieces during that same year.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1855
- mint
- Kellogg and Company
- ID Number
- NU*283645.1084
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.1149
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Kellogg & Co., 50 Dollars, 1855
- Description
- As early as 1850, agitation began in Congress for the establishment of a San Francisco branch of the United States Mint. This action was blocked by people from New York-who wanted a branch in their own state-and from Louisiana and Georgia-who argued that any California operation would represent unfair competition to the branch mints in New Orleans and Dahlonega.
- The opposition won, and San Francisco went without a branch mint for another four years. But it did get an odd sort of hybrid, the United States Assay Office of Gold, striking an odd sort of money-a gigantic-fifty-dollar ingot that also did duty as a coin.
- In addition to the Assay Office, other California coiners toyed with the idea of striking fifty-dollar gold pieces. One group, headed by J. G. Kellogg and G. F. Richter went so far as to have dies for circular slugs prepared and a dozen or so proofs struck from those dies.
- But by the time the project had gone forward that far, the federal branch Mint at San Francisco was finally coming into full production. Soon California private gold coinage, no matter how large or small the denominations, became irrelevant.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1855
- mint
- Kellogg and Company
- ID Number
- 1978.2507.0001
- catalog number
- 1978.2507.0001
- accession number
- 1978.2507
- catalog number
- 78.73.1
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Twenty Dollars, 1853 (California-Moffat & Co.)
- Description
- Produced at Moffat & Company's mint, San Francisco, California. Obverse: Liberty head, stars around, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination. Obverse and reverse designs bear a close and deliberate similarity to those used on the "official" double eagle of the same period produced by the U.S. Mint for regular circulating coins.
- Moffat & Company was a major player in the production of California private gold coinage. It was closely connected with Augustus Humbert and the fifty-dollar "slugs" of the United States Assay Office of Gold in San Francisco. Humbert did the assaying and Moffat did the coining. This 1853 double eagle is one of the last coins struck by this prolific California pioneer coiner. It was minted in the late summer or early autumn of 1853.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1853
- maker
- Moffat & Company
- ID Number
- 1991.0009.0990
- catalog number
- 1991.0009.0990
- accession number
- 1991.0009
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
U.S. Assay Office, 50 Dollars, 1851
- Description
- As early as 1850, agitation began in Congress for the establishment of a San Francisco branch of the United States Mint. This action was blocked by people from New York-who wanted a branch in their own state-and from Georgia and Louisiana-who argued that any California operation would represent unfair competition to the branch mints in Dahlonega and New Orleans.
- The opposition won, and San Francisco would go without a mint for another four years. But it did get an odd sort of hybrid, the United States Assay Office of Gold, striking an odd sort of money-a gigantic, fifty-dollar ingot that would also do duty as a coin. The arrangement was made by the Treasury Department under a contract with Moffat & Company, private assayers and gold coiners in San Francisco.
- Augustus Humbert came west to oversee the operation, which got under way at the end of January 1851. For most of the next two years, Humbert's fifty-dollar "slugs" were the principal accepted currency in California. He was eventually allowed to turn his attentions to the production of smaller, and altogether more useful, coins, ten- and twenty-dollar pieces. And his operation finally laid the framework for a formal, normal branch Mint, which began the production of ordinary federal coinage in the spring of 1854.
- Date made
- 1851
- mint
- U.S. Assay Office
- ID Number
- NU*283645.1280
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.1142
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Twenty Dollars, 1849
- Description
- Moffat & Company's mint, San Francisco. Obverse: Eagle with shield, fineness above. Reverse: Engine-turning with name and date in center. This was the final production of the provisional United States operation in San Francisco. A formal branch U.S. Mint was set up soon and began operations in the spring of 1854. A few proof strikes of the 1853 double eagle are known, including this coin.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1853
- mint
- U.S. Assay Office
- ID Number
- 1985.0551.0720
- catalog number
- 1985.0551.0720
- accession number
- 1985.0551
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, 20 Dollars, 1854-S
- Description
- The sheer size of the California gold strike altered the nature of American numismatics. It was not only that mintage figures dramatically increased; the actual range of denominations increased as well.
- Prior to 1849, there had been three gold coins: the quarter eagle, half eagle, and eagle (or $2.50, $5.00, and $10.00 coins). By 1854, three more had been added, a dollar, a three-dollar piece, and a double eagle, or twenty-dollar coin.
- Artist James Barton Longacre designed all three of the new coins. The double eagle was the most popular. For its obverse, Longacre employed a simple head of Liberty, wearing a coronet. Stars surrounded the head of the goddess, and the date appeared below. The reverse depicted a somewhat ornate representation of an eagle, a "glory" of stars and rays above, the national motto to either side.
- In 1854, the United States created a new branch mint in San Francisco to deal with the fruits of the gold rush. It was intended to replace a whole galaxy of private California mints that had created a variety of local coins.
- This double eagle was the first coin the new federal mint struck. Below the eagle, each coin from the new branch Mint bore a distinctive small "S." This distinguished the coin from ones struck in Philadelphia, which had no such mark, and ones struck at New Orleans, which had an "O."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1854
- mint
- U.S. Mint, San Francisco
- maker
- Longacre, James Barton
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.0488
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.0488
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center