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 199 items.
Page 1 of 20
Pismo Beach, California, 1 Dollar, 1933 (clamshell)
- Description
- When the Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the coastal town of Pismo Beach, California picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange. The pismo is a species of clam with a very thick shell, then found in large numbers along the California coast and prized as a food.
- A town named after the bivalves suggests an adequate supply of their shells. Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the merchants and officials of Pismo Beach (who were often the same people) decided to make the best of a bad situation, and to make the humble clam shell into an object of trade. This they did. The Chamber of Commerce and no fewer than eleven merchants issued clamshell scrip.
- Each piece was numbered, and each piece was signed on the front and on the back. As with the stamp notes of the Midwest, it was necessary to sign each clamshell on the back in order to keep it in circulation. No formal requirements may have existed, but informal pressure certainly would have endorsed the practice.
- Restwell Cabins issued "notes" in three denominations: twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and one dollar. The larger the amount, the larger the shell. The issue may have been partly intended as a spoof, or for sale to tourists, in the manner of German notgeld around 1920. Redemption would never be a problem because collectors would want to keep these pieces in their cabinets or trade them with their friends.
- But it was also intended partly as a real, if unique, circulating medium. The Restwell Cabins issue bore the motto, "IN GOD WE TRUST." Each piece was numbered, and each was signed on the front and on the back. This specimen is dated March 8, 1933. This was in the middle of Roosevelt's national banking holiday, and it is exactly the time when we might expect to see people take money into their own hands.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Restwell Cabins
- ID Number
- 1979.1263.00468
- accession number
- 1979.1263
- catalog number
- 1979.1263.00468
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Ten Dollars, Pattern, 1874
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty, date below. Reverse: Inscription about the coin's weight and metallic fineness in center, domestic denomination and foreign equivalents in surrounding cartouches. This pattern was part of the drive towards a coin with the potential for easy international acceptance.
- A dozen or so are known in copper, a few others in other metals. They are called Bickford patterns after Dana Bickford, who proposed the convertibility idea.
- [reference no. Judd 1375]
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1874
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.2016
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.2016
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Pismo Beach, California, 50 Cents, 1933 (clamshell)
- Description
- When the Great Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the California coastal town of Pismo Beach picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange. The pismo is a species of clam with a very thick shell, then found in large numbers along the California coast and prized as a food.
- A town named after clams suggests an adequate supply of their shells. Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the merchants and officials of Pismo Beach (who were often the same people) decided to make the best of a bad situation, and to make the humble pismo shell into an object of trade. This they did. The Chamber of Commerce and no fewer than eleven merchants issued clamshell scrip. Restwell Cabins issued "notes" in three denominations: twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and one dollar.
- The larger the amount, the larger the shell. The issue may have been partly intended as a spoof, or for sale to tourists, in the manner of German notgeld around 1920. Redemption would never be a problem because collectors would wish to keep such pieces in their cabinets or trade them with their friends. But it was also intended partly as a real, if unique, circulating medium. The Restwell Cabins issue bore the motto, "IN GOD WE TRUST."
- Each piece was numbered, and each piece was signed on the front and on the back. As with the stamp notes of the Midwest, it was necessary to sign each clamshell on the back in order to keep it in circulation. No formal requirements may have existed, but informal pressure certainly would have endorsed the practice.
- This specimen is dated March 8, 1933. This was in the middle of Roosevelt's national banking holiday, and it is exactly the time when we might expect to see people take money into their own hands.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Restwell Cabins
- ID Number
- 1979.1263.00472
- catalog number
- 1979.1263.00472
- accession number
- 1979.1263
- catalog number
- 79.112.OC102F
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Ten Dollars, 1803
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Capped bust of Liberty facing right; date below. Reverse: Heraldic eagle, stars and clouds above. This was designed by Robert Scot. Nearly nine thousand of these coins (whose reverse bears small stars rather than large ones) were coined during the second half of the year 1803. This coin may be the most perfectly preserved of them all.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1803
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- NU*283645.0027
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0271
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Five Dollars, 1803
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Capped bust of Liberty facing right, eight stars behind her head and five stars before. Reverse: Heraldic eagle, clouds and stars above. The Mint struck over thirty-three thousand of these half eagles in 1803. All were made from dies originally dated 1802. This one is among the best preserved.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1803
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- NU*283645.0028
- accession number
- 283645
- catalog number
- 68.159.0164
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, 1 Dollar, 1804 (Class One)
- Description
- The early dollars from the United States Mint were not instantly embraced by the public, which had become accustomed to the dollar's predecessor, the Spanish-American Piece of Eight. That coin contained slightly more silver than its new competitor.
- Then some entrepreneurs made an interesting discovery. They could buy American dollars, send them to the West Indies, and exchange them there at par for Spanish-American Pieces of Eight. Then they could bring the pesos home, turn them in to the Mint for melting, and make a profit by getting paid back in shiny new dollars.
- When the scheme was uncovered, it resulted in a thirty-year halt in dollar production, beginning in 1805. Some 19,570 dollars were coined in 1804, before the halt began. Interestingly, they weren't dated 1804, but 1803, thus avoiding the production of new dies. Although a common, cost-cutting policy at the early United States Mint, this act led to confusion years later, and to three legendary coins included in this exhibition.
- By the 1830s, American officials were actively exploring commercial opportunities elsewhere in the world. Seeking to influence foreign dignitaries, the Jackson administration instructed the Mint to create complete sets of specimen coins as gifts.
- The Philadelphia coiners did so for most other denominations without difficulty. But what to do about the silver dollar? They knew that 1804 dollars had been struck, but there didn't seem to be any survivors. So in November 1834, they created eight new 1804-dated dollars for the gift sets (later termed "class one" 1804 dollars).
- One of the eight became part of the set given to the Imam of Muscat, and another was sent to the King of Siam. And the other six? Within a few years, they escaped into private hands or entered circulation. And they became numismatic legends very quickly, for they had it all: mystery, intrigue, and tremendous rarity.
- Date made
- 1804
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- 1986.0836.0061
- catalog number
- 1986.0836.0061
- accession number
- 1986.0836
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, 1 Dollar, 1804 (Class Two)
- Description
- If you look very closely at the reverse of this, the sole remaining "class two" 1804 dollar, you will discern a slight shifting of the relationship between the clouds and the lettering above them.
- This discrepancy, which distinguishes it from the "class one" and "class three" 1804 dollars, suggests that a new reverse die was employed to strike the coin. This new die was necessary because the old one had either been broken, rusted, or simply discarded after the coinage of 1834, when the class one dollars were struck.
- This coin was made a quarter-century later, by a group of enterprising coiners who had decided to go into the rarities business. In addition to making a new die, these midnight coiners had to have stock on which to use it. Instead of following the usual procedure of rolling out a strip of metal to the correct thickness, then blanking it to the correct size-a difficult and expensive process, they decided to start with an existing coin and overstrike it with the new die. That way the new coin would be of about the right weight and thickness. This coin shows traces of the original design: it began its life as a Swiss thaler dated 1857!
- When word got out about what was going on, the Mint Director swooped down on the miscreants. All their coins but this one were retrieved and ordered melted down. It remains: a somewhat tarnished, but still legendary rarity.
- Date made
- 1804
- mint
- U.S. Mint (unauthorized)
- ID Number
- 1986.0836.0062
- catalog number
- 1986.0836.0062
- accession number
- 1986.0836
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Two and a Half Dollars, 1808
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Draped bust of liberty facing left, wearing a Liberty cap; thirteen stars; date below. Reverse: Eagle, motto E PLURIBUS UNUM on ribbon above; denomination below. This coin was designed by recent German immigrant John Reich. This quarter eagle design was only produced for one year. Fewer than three thousand quarter eagles of this type were struck.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1808
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- 1979.1263.00266
- catalog number
- 1979.1263.00266
- accession number
- 1979.1263
- catalog number
- 01530
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Five Dollars, 1810
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Draped bust of Liberty facing left, wearing a Liberty cap; thirteen stars. Reverse: Eagle, motto E PLURIBUS UNUM, denomination below. Designed by John Reich, pieces such as this were struck between 1807 and 1812. There are several minor varieties. This coin, featuring a large date and large denomination, is one of the more common varieties. However, this variety is not often found in such superb condition.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1810
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.0135
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.0135
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
United States, Five Dollars, 1812
- Description
- United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Draped bust of Liberty facing left, wearing a Liberty cap; thirteen stars. Reverse: Eagle, motto E PLURIBUS UNUM, denomination below. Early United States gold coin bearing this date and denomination are surprisingly common. However, this piece is distinctly uncommon due to its superb condition.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1812
- mint
- U.S. Mint, Philadelphia
- ID Number
- 1985.0441.0145
- catalog number
- 1985.0441.0145
- accession number
- 1985.0441
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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