Introduction

Presented herein are the papers delivered at the third annual Coinage of the Americas Conference. They incorporate a good deal of original research in an area of American coinage which had been neglected until recent years. The quality and scope of the studies published in this volume indicates that work on America's silver coinage has advanced significantly in a remarkably short time.

It is noteworthy that a number of the presentations (and the research that made them possible) have been joint studies. These collaborative efforts, which put the common goal of sharing new information above the private one of ego satisfaction, might be expected of those who gave us the monumental, jointly-authored, Early United States Dimes, but it is still sufficiently rare in American numismatics to excite and deserve comment.

The papers focus attention in three areas—the first concerns the obverse and reverse dies used for early American coinage. We are constantly discovering new coinage varieties, and the authors included here have approached the problem from a number of different aspects. David Davis has examined half dimes in detail, linking scholars and discoveries in the past to his work in the present. He has also indicated the current state of research in the area: so much is now being done that a new book on the denomination will soon appear. John McCloskey works in the later Gobrecht series, examining changes in the actual hubs used to prepare the working dies for that coinage. He justly notes that these changes, which tended to be of a subtle nature, laid unnoticed for over a century, and are only now receiving the attention they deserve, the result of a larger group of collectors examining the coinage with Heater care than previously. McCloskey divides his hub changes into three
categories, linked to the larger world of which they formed a part. Elsewhere, he writes "we are still uncovering information about these beautiful silver coins of the 19th century and only through the systematic study of these pieces will we ever be able to clear up the many mysteries that still remain about our coinage of this period." These words may be understood as the theme for this entire Coinage of the Americas Conference.

Randall Wiley and William Bugert continue this close look at the coins. Wiley concentrates on a select group of half dollars from the San Francisco mint, chosen as a specific example of what he aptly refers to as the "divide and conquer" approach to understanding coinage of the Gobrecht design. Bugert examines several rare half dollars from the New Orleans and Philadelphia facilities, in the process demonstrating that new information is still being gathered on the actual places where American coins were struck: a half dollar of 1840, which we assumed came from Philadelphia, turns out to have been made in New Orleans. Harry X Boosel rounds out this first category of presentations, with a paper on the issues of 1873. Boosel, of course, demonstrated many years ago that there are two varieties of the three in the date of all coins struck that year, including silver ones. But he now puts these issues into the larger context of historical events which were taking place at the time. He also provides welcome documentation for the reasons for the adoption of different numeral punches for 1873 dates.

This conference has also been notable in that it has afforded us looks at another, different set of dies, one which we would not ordinarily consider, but one which was a very important component of every American silver coin struck during the first 45 years of the mint's existence. That is, our dollars and half dollars sported lettered edges in those days, while our smaller coins bore reeded ones, applied in all cases by means of a third set of dies, working in what was called a "Caistaing" machine. Ivan Leaman and Donald Gunnet have discovered, and have aptly demonstrated, that there was a system—a fairly consistent sequence of employment relating to the edge dies in use at any particular time. In so doing, they have given us a most powerful new tool to ascertain coinage emission at the early mint. In a happy bit of accidental numismatic collaboration, Russell Logan has devised a new way of photographing the edges of these coins, at a time when it is increasingly necessary to do so.

The discoveries of Leaman and Gunnet lead us into the third area to which the conference participants have devoted themselves, which we might term mint practices and production sequences. As with work on the dies, the authors in this last category have tended to confine their attentions to coins of a single series. In another joint paper, Allen Lovejoy and William Subjack have examined one of the workhorses of the early coinage system, the dime, and they give a vivid picture of the practices and difficulties surrounding its production at the fledgling mint. They also give much new information on early dime varieties; it was their expertise in this respect which was responsible for their being asked to contribute to the book on early dimes mentioned previously. Robert Hilt has devoted his attention to the first half dollars, and, in particular, to how dies for those first American coins were produced and organized for use. His book on the subject was published in 1980; the occasion of this conference provided him with the opportunity to share his recent work and to explain the reasoning behind his basic conclusions. Robert Stark looks at the early dollars, examining their origins and production in detail, explaining the difficulties surrounding the first issues of these, the keystones of the entire federal monetary system. The difficulties he outlines in the adoption and striking of the denomination cause us to marvel that any were ever coined, and, as he points out, the career of these early dollars was an unhappy and a brief one. David Cohen examines dollars too, but the much later ones of the Gobrecht design. He is investigating a particular technological problem, the use of the date logotype, essential in the mass-production techniques which were being applied to American coinage dies by the middle of the nineteenth century. Very little work has yet been done on the problem in this country, and Mr. Cohen's efforts will be most appreciated.

All of the above might be called common practice at the early mint—that is, how it prepared the dies and struck the coins. Some details of this practice have long been known, while people such as our participants are now discovering others. But there was also what might be called uncommon practice, things which the coiners did in private, for personal gain, and which have only been discovered in recent times—if they have been discovered at all. Once people began collecting coins, it could hardly have been otherwise. The Renaissance saw the phenomenon called Paduans—faithful and not-so-faithful replicas of Roman sestertii. The gifted Karl Wilhelm Becker produced brilliant forgeries of virtually every well-known, and hence collectible, coin, and his forgeries bedeviled collectors



in the last century and continue to be a problem for museum curators in this one. But the early forgers had been enterprising individuals, not usually connected to an official mint, and they tended to confine their attentions to ancient forgeries, not modern Fantasies.

But in the years around 1850, corrupt individuals in an official coining facility did begin producing instant rarities for the delectation of collectors. Unfortunately, the mint in question was located in Philadelphia, and before the forgers were done, they had created one of the two United States coins about which everyone, regardless of collecting interest, has heard—the 1804 dollar (the other coin, a Liberty nickel of 1913, was created for similar reasons and under similar circumstances a half century later). In the early 1960s, two intrepid numismatic researchers, Eric P. Newman and Kenneth Bressett, set out to unravel the mystery and misunderstanding surrounding the 1804 dollar. By most accounts, they succeeded brilliantly, in a bit of numismatic detective work which has inspired a generation of later writers. And now, as we approach the silver anniversary of the publication of The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, they have presented us with a paper on developments in the story of the coin since they last published on it. As they demonstrate, the controversy continues. But this questioning, the presentation and refutation of new opinion, new information, mercy serves to inform us that study on early American silver coinage is in a healthy state, and that we can expect more revelations, more controversy, in the years to come.

Richard G. Doty Conference Chairman