One of the simplest designs for an American coin is that of the so-called Bar copper—bearing on the obverse USA as a monogram, and on the reverse a series of 13 parallel bars, each representing one of the early states. These began to appear in New York City in 1785, but their origin is not [...]

Do you know the meaning of S.T. 1860.X? Among the most plentiful encased postage stamps issued as monetary substitutes in 1862, when coins were hoarded and rarely found in circulation, are those issued to advertise Drake’s Plantation Bitters. Put up in log-cabin shaped bottles, the nostrum was mainly alcohol, and was said to cure just [...]

One of the shortest-lived 19th-century coin design types is the 1859 Indian Head cent with the laurel (or olive) wreath reverse. This reverse was used only in this year and was dropped in 1860 in favor of the oak wreath and shield motif. There does not seem to have been a technical reason why this [...]

While the United States mints coined millions of Washington quarters in 1975, you won’t ever find a quarter with this date, no matter how hard you look. The reason for this is that the millions of quarters turned out by the Mint during 1975 were actually dated a year later or, more precisely, 1776-1976.

Did You Know. . . The only naval hero honored in the Comitia Americana series (struck by the Paris Mint for the Continental Congress) is Scottish-born John Paul Jones (1747-1792). Jones, commemorated on a 57.3mm piece, is remembered for his exploits on the French-built Bonhomme Richard (Poor Richard, a tribute to Benjamin Franklin) which electrified [...]

No medal of George Washington has received the attention of Pierre Simon Duvivier’s Washington Before Boston, struck in early 1790 at the Paris, France, Mint for the Continental Congress or Comitia Americana.  The occasion commemorated was the evacuation of the port of Boston by the British under the shadow of Washington’s cannons on Dorchester Heights. [...]

It would be frowned on today (to put it mildly), but what better way to keep track of the die variety of a coin than to ink the attribution on the face? A century ago several numismatists did this—as illustrated here by a 1787 Connecticut cent, Miller die variety 33.10-Z.7, from an old-time collection. This [...]

Did you know that the Lords Proprietors named on the 1694 Carolina Elephant token were the eight men who were given control of Carolina in 1663? Or was this the case? It would have been the right answer had we been playing Jeopardy! a few years back. Today, another possibility is that the Carolina coffee [...]

Did you know that copper coins were the hot ticket in the marketplace in 2009? It was so, per this item by Steve Roach in Coin World, January 25, in the COIN Values section: “Classic U.S. Rarities Key-Date Investment Index” provided by Coin World to the Wall Street Journal for 2009, decline of 7.9 percent [...]

Recently your editor was able to buy a complete set of a magazine, The Spirit of the Fair, published in 1864 and given out at the New York Metropolitan Fair, held by the Sanitary Commission in 1864. If you are a collector of Civil War tokens, you probably do know a bit about it, or [...]