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 3 items.
United States, New England One Shilling, (1652)
- Description
- Produced at John Hull's private mint in Boston. Obverse: Script NE (for New England). Reverse: XII for twelve pence, or one shilling. Boston was founded in 1630. Within two decades, it had become a prosperous, thriving community, engaging in legal trade with the mother country and clandestine trade with Spanish America.
- Perpetually short of coinage, the proper Bostonians came up with an unorthodox idea: they would take a portion of the silver coming in from the south, melt it down, and make coins from it. Their first efforts were modest. They recast the silver, beat it into thin sheets, then cut more-or-less round blanks from it. The blanks were struck with simple designs, once on each side.
- The resulting coins were fairly easy to counterfeit. They were very easy to clip off some of the metal (and a portion of their value would be thereby removed). Embarrassed bureaucrats soon legislated more sophisticated designs that took up all of each side of the coin.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1652
- maker
- Massachusetts Bay Colony
- ID Number
- 1982.0798.0001
- catalog number
- 1982.0798.0001
- accession number
- 1982.0798
- catalog number
- 82.798.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Massachusetts, Pine Tree Shilling, "1652" (struck 1667-1674)
- Description
- As early as 1650, the colony of Massachusetts Bay was a commercial success. But an inadequate supply of money put its future development in jeopardy. England was not inclined to send gold and silver coins to the colonies, for they were in short supply in the mother country.
- Taking matters into their own hands, Boston authorities allowed two settlers, John Hull and Robert Sanderson, to set up a mint in the capital in 1652. The two were soon striking silver coinage-shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Nearly all of the new coins bore the same date: 1652.
- This was the origin of America's most famous colonial coin, the pine tree shilling. The name comes from the tree found on the obverse. It may symbolize one of the Bay Colony's prime exports, pine trees for ships' masts. Massachusetts coinage not only circulated within that colony, but was generally accepted throughout the Northeast, becoming a monetary standard in its own right.
- Why the 1652 date? Some believe that it was intended to commemorate the founding of the Massachusetts mint, which did occur in 1652. Others believe the choice was a reflection of larger political events. Coinage was a prerogative of the King. In theory, these colonists had no right to strike their own coins, no matter how great their need.
- But in 1652, there was no king. King Charles had been beheaded three years previously, and England was a republic. The people in Massachusetts may have cleverly decided to put that date on their coinage so that they could deny any illegality when and if the monarchy were reestablished.
- This "1652" shilling is likely to have been minted around 1670. In 1682, the Hull/Sanderson mint closed after closer royal scrutiny of the operation.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1652
- maker
- Massachusetts Bay Colony
- ID Number
- 1982.0798.0009
- catalog number
- 1982.0798.0009
- accession number
- 1982.0798
- catalog number
- 82.48.09
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Massachusetts, 20 Shillings, 1690
- Description
- Called upon by the British government to help fight the French in Canada in 1689, Massachusetts authorities were hard-put to comply, because official money was unavailable. The Hull/Sanderson mint, which had created Pine Tree Shillings and other coins, had been closed on Crown orders years before, and all coinage was now in extremely short supply.
- Then someone had an idea: Why not issue paper certificates to pay for the supplies and troops that Massachusetts was expected to contribute? The Crown had promised to reimburse the colony, in coinage, at war's end. The experiment was tried, and it worked. The first government-issued paper money in the entire Western world had made its appearance unexpectedly in Massachusetts.
- Since these notes could eventually be redeemed for coinage - were in fact as good as gold or silver - another unknown functionary had an epochal idea: why not leave them in circulation? After all, everyone accepted their status as "real" money, and the need for them was great. So it was done. Colonial authorities elsewhere watched, and when the Crown did not stop the experiment in the Bay Colony, other colonies decided to begin issuing paper currency of their own.
- Paper's popularity spread, and colonial America became dependent upon it. But paper was vulnerable to counterfeiting, or, in this case, to tampering. No twenty-shilling notes were actually issued by Massachusetts in 1690. Yet someone skilled with a pen thought there ought to be one, and proceeded to create it, altering the original denomination of two shillings sixpence.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1690-02-03
- issuing authority
- Massachusetts Bay Colony
- ID Number
- 1999.0149.02
- serial number
- 419
- accession number
- 1999.0149
- catalog number
- 1999.0149.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center