Coins, Currency, and Medals - Overview
The Museum possesses one of the largest numismatic collections in the world. The collections include over 1 million objects, comprising coins, medals, decorations, and pieces of paper money. Among the many great rarities here are some of the world’s oldest coins, created 2,700 years ago. But the collection also includes the latest innovations in electronic monetary exchange, as well as beads, wampum, and other commodities once used as money. A special strength lies in artifacts that illustrate the development of money and medals in the United States. The American section includes many rare and significant coins, such as two of three known examples of the world's most valuable coin, the 1933 double eagle $20 gold piece.
"Coins, Currency, and Medals - Overview" showing 3 items.
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
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, 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