precious metals as well as copper. Of course the advent of the Union and the constitutional provision for an exclusively national coinage speedily ended all the State had begun and planned to do. The reverse type of the copper cent of this State has already been mentioned. The Indian with bow and arrow and the inscription COMMONWEALTH, with the single star (Pl. I, 5), form the obverse type. The indication of the value on both the Cent and Half-cent is a further peculiarity not found on the coins of the other States.

During the period between the beginning of the War of Revolution and the establishment of a mint in 1792 there was a great interest taken in the types of the expected coins of the country, and a large number of patterns were privately made. Some of these suggestions date as far back as 1776 (Pl. I, 3). But the chief interest, apart from certain very rare pieces, attaches to the large number of patterns and tokens (it is not easy to determine which in many cases) that bear the effigy of Washington (Cat. No. 70 ff.). Many of these pieces were doubtless produced by speculators and floated wherever there was a pressing want of small coins, but on the other hand some specimens undoubtedly were meant to embody the idea urgently advanced by many citizens that the portrait of the President should appear on the coins of the country, or at least on some of the denominations. Of course but one response to such a proposal could be expected from Washington and that was a decided negative.

Of coins of this period, two gold pieces deserve mention, and not alone because they are very rare specimens and command enormous prices in the market. One of these is an English Guinea dated 1775 and impressed with the dies with which were struck the copper token known from the inscription on the obverse as the Immune Columbia (Pl. I, 8). It is a unique specimen and is probably also an example of a rare practice, that of restriking foreign coins in the precious metals. The other and more interesting example is a large gold piece known as a Doubloon, which was produced by Ephraim Brasher, a New York jeweler and goldsmith (Pl. I, 9). Brasher's activity was not limited to the production of these large gold pieces, but apparently he served his community in a more effectual manner in regard to its currency by countermarking with his initials (E. B.) some of the foreign gold and silver which passed through his hands and the genuineness of which he had the expert knowledge to determine (No. 64). How extensive this latter practice was can not now be determined, but such a service, if sufficiently extended, must have been of great value to a community that was constantly swindled with bogus coin of every description, for the utterance of bogus money was at that time greatly facilitated by the general use of foreign coins throughout the country.

The foreign coins whose currency was most frequently legalized by act of Congress were British and Portuguese, the latter generally meaning Brazilian, gold, and Spanish, or Mexican, silver. In the early history of the country the Spanish "Pillar Dollar," later and at the time under consideration the Spanish "Milled Dollar," also known as "Piece of Eight," was the very generally recognized monetary unit. The paper currency issued by the Congress of the united colonies during the War of Revolution was made redeemable in "Spanish Milled Dollars or the Value thereof

in Gold and Silver;" and in contracts of nearly every description payment is frequently stipulated in the same coin. In the retail trade of the country the Spanish, afterward the Mexican, Real (Pl. X, 5) and Half Real (Pl. X, 6) were in common use until the middle of the nineteenth century. Shilling or Mexican Shilling was the term generally applied to the Real, which was one-eighth of the Peso and approximately 122 cents. But in certain of the Middle States, especially Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and in much of the South the Real was known as the Levy and the Half Real as the Fippenny or Fippenny Bit, terms which are corruptions of eleven and five penny and presumably point to a local valuation placed upon the coins. The act of Congress which stopped the circulation of foreign coins in the country stipulated that the Half Real should be received by the Government agencies at a valuation of five cents, the bullion value of it. In the western part of the country the Real was popularly known as a Bit-a term which yet survives as a popular money of account, the terms Two Bits, Four Bits, and Six Bits being employed to express the values, twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five cents. The influence of the Mexican Real Bit, which had a value of approximately 122 cents, is probably seen in the application, in parts of the West, of the term Short Bit to the slightly smaller Dime.

By the law of 1857 all previous acts authorizing the currency of foreign coins in the United States were repealed.

THE NATIONAL COINAGE.

The Mint of the United States was established at Philadelphia by resolution of Congress dated April 6, 1792, and the first coins were struck at the new mint in March of the following year. Subsequently several mints were established in different parts of the country, as will be seen from the list of them at the close of this sketch.

HISTORY.

In a brief sketch it is manifestly impossible to discuss adequately the related subjects which have had a marked influence upon our coinage. The state of the fine arts, the course of its foreign commerce, and chiefly its financial history determine the coinage of any country, especially of a new nation. It will be sufficient here to note how our coinage varied in character and volume under laws which the Congress enacted during over a century of heated discussion.

Preliminary to the first legislation to establish a mint and monetary system two important documents were submitted to Congress, the one by Robert Morris, possibly written by his assistant, Gouverneur Morris, and later a masterly report by Mr. Hamilton, as Secretary of State in Washington's administration, treating of all the subjects connected with the proposed legislation.

The Morris report, made in 1782, proposed to abolish the English system of pounds, shillings, and pence then prevailing in the several States, and instead establish a coinage on the decimal system with a unit that would agree without a fraction with all the numerous valuations of the Spanish milled dollar in the different States. This small unit would

be of that dollar. Mr. Jefferson, as a member of the committee to which the report was referred, in a searching review of its proposals, indorsed some of the important features, but rejected the proposed unit as too small and inconvenient. He proposed instead that the unit be a dollar of approximately the value of the Spanish milled dollar then generally used in the country, both because it was well known and of convenient size and value.

The document submitted to Congress by Secretary Hamilton on January 21, 1791, treated the subject in all its phases, accepted Mr. Jefferson's notion of the dollar as a unit, and urged the coinage of both gold and silver with the relative value of 15 pounds of silver to 1 of gold.

The act of April 6, 1792—Mint establishment created.-This law, which established the monetary system of the country and a mint, provided for the free coinage of both gold and silver, fixed the legal ratio of the values of the two metals at 15 to 1, as Mr. Hamilton had urged, and provided for a token coinage in copper. The first coinage of the mint consisted of an issue of copper Cents and Half-cents in 1793, followed in 1794 by the issue of the silver dollar and half-dollars, and in 1795 gold Eagles and Halfeagles. The first issue of the gold Eagle and silver dollar were of the following composition:

It soon became evident that the gold coins and the silver dollar were not going into circulation, and investigation proved that they were being either exported or reduced to bullion; for speculators discovered that the gold coins had been undervalued and the fine gold in an Eagle was worth more than 10 silver dollars; while the new silver dollars could be readily had in exchange for worn Spanish dollars of reduced weight and value, a fact which insured the exports of silver to be made in the new full-weight pieces. Therefore the coinage of the Eagle and Silver Dollar was suspended in 1803 and 1804, respectively. At any rate it appears that President Jefferson must have stopped the coinage of the gold Eagle in 1804, and his order, still preserved, of May, 1806, gave formal sanction to the suspension of the coinage of the dollar which had really been discontinued in 1803.

Act of 1834-Weight of gold coins reduced. This law of 1834 deals directly only with gold coins, its purpose being, of course, to correct their valua

tion. The fine gold in the Eagle was reduced from 247.5 to 232 grains and the full standard weight (including the alloy) was fixed at 258 grains.

The increased coinage of gold the new law was expected to insure was confined for several years to the Half-eagle and Quarter-eagle, the two coins least liable to exportation. In fact the coinage of the Half-eagle had been interrupted for only the years 1816-17 since its first appearance, though in certain years but few were struck.

The extreme scarcity of the Half-eagle bearing certain early dates can hardly be urged as an argument against the recorded amount of the coinage; for when the weight of the gold coins was reduced the older and heavier pieces were of course melted down. But following the passage of the law of June 28, 1834, the coinage of the Half-eagle rose to over three and a half million dollars, and of the Quarter-eagle from $10,400 in 1833 to over a quarter million the latter half of 1834. Not until 1842 did the annual coinage of the Eagle pass the million-dollar mark.

Preparations to resume the coinage of the Silver Dollar were begun soon after the enactment of the law of 1834. New patterns were struck in 1836 (Pl. VII, 1), but there was no issue of this denomination until 1839; and the coinage of the Silver Dollar was insignificant until after the enactment of certain laws in the seventies.

Law of 1837-Change of weights and alloys.-One result of the changes effected by the law of 1834 was to modify the composition of standard gold by increasing the percentage of alloy from 83 to approximately 108. This was so near a standard of 90 per cent fine gold, 10 per cent alloy, percentages that would be far more convenient for commerce, that a law of this year prescribed that 2 grains of fine gold be added to the Eagle, the standard weight remaining the same, and that the weight of the Silver Dollar be reduced to 4124 grains, while the amount of fine silver remain unchanged. The result of these slight changes in the coins was to introduce a uniform standard of 900 thousandths fine for the coins of both metals. The silver coinage of 1792-1837 was 893 thousandths fine.

Law of 1853-Fractional silver coins made subsidiary.-The operations of the mint for a few years following the act of 1834 are of special interest. The coinage of gold rose from an inconsiderable amount prior to 1834 to nearly $60,000,000 in 1852; the coinage of silver increased until 1842 when about $3,600,000 in Half and Quarter Dollars were coined, but dropped below $175,000 in 1852. The law of 1834 had placed too low a valuation on silver, and the result was that the silver coins were bought up and sold as bullion at a profit and gold sent to the mints for coinage. And since the issues of the Silver Dollars were small, speculators dealt in the fractional coins. The Half-dollar, Quarter-dollar, and even smaller silver coins became scarce and domestic trade was hampered. To remedy this evil the law of 1853 reduced the weight of the Half-dollar from 206 to 192 grains of standard silver and of the other silver coins in proportion; they were thus made subsidiary. The free coinage of these fractional silver pieces was by the same law prohibited. The bullion for such coinage was thereafter bought by the Secretary of the Treasury for the account of the Government. The coinage of fractional silver in 1853 totaled nearly $10,000,000.

Act of 1857-Circulation of foreign coins prohibited. In 1793 the circulation of foreign coins, chiefly, in fact, Spanish-American silver, had been

legalized as a measure of necessity to supply the country with legal tender money for the domestic retail trade. Various causes had restricted the volume of the national silver coinage and not until 1857 did conditions warrant the repeal of that law so as to eliminate the large volume of foreign coins from the currency of the country. So, after the fractional silver coins had been made subsidiary and their circulation apparently assured, and perhaps to assure that result, the law making all foreign coins a legal tender was repealed. The Secretary of the Treasury prescribed the valuation at which the "Levy" and the "Bit," for these small Mexican Real and Medio real pieces were the chief foreign coins then in use, should be received in exchange and they soon disappeared.

Acts of 1864, 1865, and 1866—Additional minor coins.—On account of the high premium to which silver rose in the early years of the Civil War coins of that metal, including the smallest denominations, went out of circulation and retail trade was greatly embarrassed. The final disappearance of the fractional silver pieces came about in 1862. The coinage of silver in 1862 was less than half what it had been in 1861, and in subsequent years there was further decrease. In the following year of 1863 thousands of merchants throughout the country resorted to the use of private tokens, of the value of 1 cent, to relieve the stringency of small change. Enormous quantities of these "Civil War Tokens" still exist, interesting evidence of the financial distress of the times. But the private issue of these One-cent tokens was immediately checked by the issue of fractional paper currency which first appeared in 1863. In this period of great scarcity of small coins required for change three denominations of minor coins were added to the series; these were the bronze Two cents (1864), nickel Three cents (1865), and the nickel Five cents (1866).

Act of 1873-New coins-Metric weight legalized.-The monetary legislation of this year amounted to a complete revision of the laws governing the coinage, but largely it legalized what had already come into practice of necessity. The act is most noted for its omissions.

Bearing most directly upon the phase of the subject of importance here four denominations were discontinued, the silver Twenty cents, Halfdime and Three cents, and the bronze Two cents, while a Three-dollar gold piece and a silver Trade Dollar were added to the series. The last piece was coined in response to a petition addressed to Congress by western trade bodies through the medium of the California Legislature, by whom it was expected that this coin, because struck on the same standard as the Mexican dollar (420 grains 0.900 fine) which circulated freely in China and Japan, would assist their trade with the Orient.

The act specifically provides for the continued coinage of all the gold coins and the fractional silver pieces, but omits any mention of the standard silver dollar. For four years following the enactment of this law, 18741877, no standard silver dollars were coined, but about 35,000,000 Trade Dollars were struck. The expected results from the Trade Dollar were not realized, and many of them went into the circulation at home. In 1886 they were withdrawn from circulation and recoined into standard dollars. The law also contained the important provision that the Half-dollar should weigh 12.5 grams, with the Quarter and Dime in proportion, which required an addition of but .9 grains troy to its standard weight. The