Dated December 2, 1862, this note was almost completely worn out by the time someone got around to strengthening it with a piece of newspaper. Why would they have bothered? We know that the repair was done in 1864, because the newspaper fragment mentions Andrew Johnson, who had been chosen to be Abraham Lincoln's running mate in the upcoming Northern elections.
By 1864, a Confederate dollar bill was worth very much less than a dollar, because most people could see the bleakness of Southern prospects. But money was money, and beyond its value as a means of exchange, it represented the hopes and dreams of an aspiring nation. Apparently, this bill mattered enough for someone to go to the trouble of patching it up and sending it on its way.
But look closely: they used a Northern newspaper. If such a publication were common enough to be recycled in this way, then matters were dire indeed. Night was closing in on the Confederacy, and on its money. Both were departing the realm of real events, moving into the realm of legend.
Obverse Image: Portrait of Benjamin Franklin in center of note, seal of the United States (left side of note).
Obverse Text: 100 / AE67188062A / E5 / THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE / THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE / TREASURER OF THE UNITED STATES / SERIES 1996 / H4 / H51 / SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY / ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS / UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM / FRANKLIN
Reverse Image: Independence Hall with trees.
Reverse Text: 100 / THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / IN GOD WE TRUST / ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS / INDEPENDENCE HALL
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.
Obverse Image: Full-length Liberty holding a torch in her right hand and olive branch in left. Capitol Dome in lower left; rays of sun in background; stars around rim.
Obverse Text: LIBERTY / 1907
Reverse Image: Eagle flying through rays of sun.
Reverse Text: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / TWENTY DOLLARS
Edge: E PLURIBUS UNUM divided by stars.
Description
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt asked sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to lead an effort to redesign American coinage. Saint-Gaudens developed a design for what many consider the most beautiful American coin ever conceived. Unfortunately, the coin required multiple strikes to produce, even when its ultra-high relief design was reduced to a lower relief.
Deciding how to modify the coin so it could be produced in large quantities with a single strike in a high speed press was left to the Mint's Chief Engraver, Charles E. Barber. In effect, he told President Roosevelt to make a choice. He could have artistry in small quantities or mediocrity in large amounts.
If he chose the first, Americans would have beautiful money that few would ever see. If he opted for the second, Americans would have as much money as they needed, even though it might be merely pretty rather than beautiful. Roosevelt likely felt he had little choice: the purpose of coinage is commercial first, anything else second. And so one can imagine him being upset, but accepting low relief to facilitate an increase in production.
The first of the redesigned coins was struck in December 1907. It was easily distinguished from earlier versions: not only was there a radical difference in the coins' relief, but even the date had been altered. Saint-Gaudens's ultra high relief and Hering's high relief coins bore the date in Roman numerals (MCMVII). Barber's version featured Arabic numerals (1907). Thus amended, the new double eagles would continue to be struck through the beginning of 1933.
Obverse Image: Left-facing Liberty wearing a feather headdress, 13 stars along top edge of coin.
Obverse Text: LIBERTY / 1907
Reverse Image: Eagle with wings folded standing on top of a bundle of arrows and branch.
Reverse Text: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / E PLURIBUS UNUM / TEN DOLLARS
Description
In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt asked sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to lead an effort to redesign American coinage. Saint-Gaudens developed a design that many consider the most beautiful American coin ever conceived. In addition to this $20 coin, Saint-Gaudens also redesigned this $10 coin, or eagle. Although the design has always been considered subordinate to his design for the $20 coin, it deserves close scrutiny. It bears witness to the labors of a gifted artist, working in ill health and under great pressure, and creating beauty almost at his final moment.
Saint-Gaudens was working against time and knew it. By the time he turned his attention to the ten-dollar coin, he was already gravely ill, with only a few months to live. So he recycled some earlier ideas. He reused a head of Victory that he had originally created for the Sherman Monument in New York City, adding a war bonnet. The result was fanciful, and Saint-Gaudens's logical equation of Liberty with a Native American was no more convincing than Longacre's version on the Indian Head cent.
But from an artistic point of view, it worked. The eagle on the reverse was also recycled, this time from President Roosevelt's inaugural medal. The coin shown here was struck in modest quantity-about thirty-two thousand pieces. However, all but forty-two were ultimately melted down.
Obverse Image: Full-length Liberty holding a torch in her right hand and olive branch in left. Capitol Dome in lower left; rays of sun in background; stars around rim.
Obverse Text: LIBERTY / MCMVII
Reverse Image: Eagle flying through rays of sun.
Reverse Text: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / TWENTY DOLLARS
Edge: E PLURIBUS UNUM divided by stars.
Description
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt asked sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign American coinage. As Saint-Gaudens began work on the project, there was never any possibility that he would restrict himself to well-traveled artistic paths. Playing it safe was against his nature and that of the president for whom he toiled.
As a result of Saint-Gaudens's vision and Roosevelt's persistence, Americans got their most beautiful double eagle, one of the most artistic pieces of money ever struck. Instead of a head or a static, seated goddess, Saint-Gaudens's Lady Liberty strides towards us, the dawn at her back. She represents the morning of the Republic, full of possibilities and hope.
She bears a torch in her right hand, an olive branch in her left: offerings of freedom and peace. The law said that Saint-Gaudens had to use an eagle for his reverse design, and so he did. But what an eagle! Nothing like it had ever been seen before. The naturalistic bird, in such high relief that it threatens to soar out of the circular space that seeks to enclose it, is all movement and grace.
Saint-Gaudens and his patron surely knew that this coin was impossible to make in mass quantities. The high relief came at a high price: it took nine blows from the hydraulic coining press to strike each one. Charles E. Barber, the Mint's chief engraver, strenuously objected out of jealousy, but he had a point.
This is no way to make money for mass circulation. But to Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens, the chief engraver and other critics lacked vision. This ultra-high relief double eagle was intended to show what artistry and technology could do when afforded the chance. Fewer than two dozen of the ultra-high relief coins were minted, in February and March of 1907.
Obverse Image: Full-length Liberty holding a torch in her right hand and olive branch in left. Capitol Dome in lower left; rays of sun in background; stars around rim.
Obverse Text: LIBERTY / 1927 / D
Reverse Image: Eagle flying with sun behind.
Reverse Text: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / TWENTY DOLLARS / IN GOD WE TRUST
Edge: E PLURIBUS UNUM divided by stars.
Description
Numismatic legends can be contrived, or they can be accidental-objects that never started as legends but became legendary due to unforeseen circumstances. Perhaps all but a few members of a given mintage were destroyed, or hoarded in unsettled times and never recovered. Under these circumstances, legendary status will be acquired years after the actual creation of the object.
America's numismatic story embraces a number of accidental legends, but none, perhaps, is more fascinating than a double eagle, struck in Denver in 1927. When the 1927 Denver twenty-dollar gold piece was minted, there was absolutely nothing exceptional about the coin, or the circumstances of its creation.
The United States was firmly on the gold standard. Gold was still being mined in Alaska and the West, and the United States branch mints at Denver and San Francisco were expected to turn the yellow metal into gold coins, which they did. That year saw Denver producing 180,000 double eagles-a decline from the figure for previous years, but a perfectly acceptable mintage.
If matters had remained as they were when the coins were struck, they never would have become legendary. But matters did not remain the same. An economic downturn at the end of the 1920s turned into an economic collapse by the beginning of the 1930s; and a new President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, decided to take the country off the gold standard as one more way of combating the Depression.
Under the circumstances, most gold coins were called in and melted. Provisions were made for exempting collectibles, but few people thought of the recent gold issues as collectibles. So virtually all were turned in, the 1927 Denver double eagles along with the rest. And a once reasonably common twenty-dollar coin from Denver acquired legendary status. At present, this is one of fewer than a dozen that are known.
