Coin Talk

With more US Mint Bureau documents becoming available on-line through the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP), it seems a good time to give those doing numismatic research a little guidance. This will show how various groups of documents are connected and suggest which files to search for letters relating to specific events or persons.

The information will help researchers look through thousands of documents without have to spend weeks at NARA locations thumbing through thick volumes and overstuffed file boxes.

What you will find: Connections between archive files. Transcriptions of some documents.

What you will not find: Transcriptions of everything.

Access: All materials are available for free via NNP to read or download.

Basic files in Record Group 104 U.S. Mint ––


For letters from 1873 to 1900 the overall search flow is:

1. Start with Entry 1. These are in chronological order and many are transcribed. Search by subject or approximate date.

2. Once...

Although there's still two months left in the year (including the Baltimore show at the end of this month), I'm almost certain that I've already purchased my top coin of the year. It is one of my "bucket list" types that I've been hoping to acquire for years now, and I finally had the chance to do so. Photo borrowed from the seller because My attempts at photography did not do the coin justice:

Sasanian Empire. AR drachm (3.00 g, clipped). Queen Boran (630-631). Obverse: Bust of queen right, legend in Pahlavi before and behind "Bwran GDH abzwt" (Boran [who] multiplies glory). Reverse: Zoroastrian fire-altar with two attendants, crescent and sun above, to right mintmark SK (Sakastan), to left date [Year] 2. Gobl I/1 (229), MACW 1241, Sunrise 1006. This coin: Stephen Album Auction 44, lot 110 (September 15-18, 2022).

In 628, a conspiracy of nobles removed Khusro II from the throne, put him through a show trial, and executed him. This would set...

Recently had to buy one of these since I love counterstamps and a good story.





And here’s the story, for educational purposes, from PCGS

A Referendum, a Newspaper Editor & a Coin – The Story of the “Anguilla Liberty Dollar”
By Jay TurnerApril 9, 2020

1967 $1, X#2 C/M on Mex 5 Peso, Anguilla, PCGS MS63.

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1967 $1, X#2 C/M on Mex 5 Peso, Anguilla, PCGS MS63. Click image to enlarge.

In history, fiction often becomes fact. This is certainly true in numismatics, where sometimes reality is overtaken by salesmanship, ignorance, and lack of published materials. One such glaring...

Coins found in New England help solve mystery of murderous 1600s pirate: "One of the greatest crimes of the 17th century"

From CBS News:

One tarnished silver coin at a time, the ground is yielding new evidence that in the late 1600s, one of the world's most ruthless pirates wandered the American colonies with impunity.

Newly surfaced documents also strengthen the case that English buccaneer Henry Every - the target of the first worldwide manhunt - hid out in New England before sailing for Ireland and vanishing into the wind.

CBS News article:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coins-...mystery-of-murderous-1600s-pirate-henry-every

A Mughal coin of Aurangzeb which could have been part of the pirate's loot:


Mughal silver rupee of Aurangzeb, Surat mint, AH 1091 (AD 1680)
Silver, 24 mm, 11.49 gm, Krause KM 300.86

How cool is this . . . . . ?




I recently picked up this really nicely designed New Orleans pictorial token. Unfortunately, the venue this token was promoting had a tragic ending, but it also came with a rare accompaniment piece.

The token is an advertisement for The Lamplighter Club, high atop the Rault Center in New Orleans, LA. The Lamplighter Club was a small rooftop venue at the top of the Rault Center, a 17-story building populated with offices and nice apartments. One of the few high rises in 1970s New Orleans, it boasted a skyline view from the heart of the Central Business District. The lounge attracted many affluent professionals and cocktail lovers looking for a drink with some nice scenery to the corners of Gravier and South Rampart.

It's unfortunate end came 50 years ago this week. On November 29, 1972, a terrible tragedy befell a group of unsuspecting New Orleanians...

Until recently, I had a gapping hole in my collection pertaining to Mark Antony... and specifically his 3 wives that appeared on coinage. I made it a point to try to fill some of these holes and not only managed to knock out the ones on my list, but also snag a few others that weren't on the list. They are now some of my favorite coins, so I figured I would share them here:

Fulvia was Antony's wife when the Second Triumvirate was established. As Antony's wife and Octavian's mother-in-law, she was the most powerful woman in Rome and didn't shy away from wielding her influence. She remained in Rome to look after Antony's affairs while he was galivanting around in the East pretending to be a god and banging every queen and noblewoman in sight.

Fulvia


Fulvia became desperate when Antony started his very public affair with the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, with whom he would go on to have 3 children, and was further enraged when Octavian...

Back in old England economist Sir Thomas Gresham 1519-1579 said that ‘Bad money drives out good money”. At that time nearly all money was precious metal coinage. Being in coin form standardized the metals to government standards and made commercial transactions possible. That was good money. Bad money was basically inflationary when greedy rulers debased or lowered the gold or silver content of the coins. People recognized the difference in the coins quickly. They hoarded the good ones while spending only the lower value debased coins. Good coins disappeared even faster in times of war when gold and silver was replaced with copper and paper money as in the American Civil War. Ten years later when the Franco-Prussian war broke out the city of Kaiserslautern, which used Bavarian coins suddenly experienced a coin shortage that brought commerce in the city to a stand still. Silver coins vanished and with 200,000...

For the past several years a sizable portion of my collecting budget has been on Thaler sized coins, mostly from the German States but, from all over the world if they strike my fancy. Multiple thalers have been on my radar but rarely does one come up for sale at a price that Is attainable for me.

Soon after the discovery of the rich new silver veins in the ducal mines of the Harz Mountains, Julius (1528-1589, Duke and Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel 1568-1589) devised a plan to create a permanent reserve fund for the defense of his duchy. He ordered each of his subjects who owned property to purchase one of his new multiple thalers. The denomination purchased depended on the wealth of the subject. Coins were struck in a range of denominations from 1-¼ to 16 thalers. Owners of these pieces were required to turn them in when requested by the duke in exchange for debased currency, thus creating an instant source of good silver coinage whenever needed. Julius’ successors in the...

Belgium Brussels Exposition 50 Francs 1935 Robot Coins

I began collecting modern foreign coins in the mid 1960's and I bought a 1966 world coins catalog titled A Catalog of Modern World Coins By R. S. Yeoman.

One of the illustrations was for a Belgian silver 50 franc coin commemorating the "Brussels Exposition 1935". There was no other description for the coin and the value for one in very-fine (VF) condition was $12.00.

The coin had an interesting design. The obverse had a figure which looked like a robot and the reverse had a building which looked like something from a science-fiction movie.

I wanted one of these coins but at the time (1966) I did not have much money.

As an adult I learned that the "robot" was the angel St. Michael slaying a dragon and the building was the Palace of Expositions which is still standing.

I must have walked by the Palace of Expositions during my visit to Brussels in 1971 because I remember visiting the futuristic "Atomium" from the 1958...

Quoted from this source: https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/us-circulating-coins

"In 1792, during construction of the new Mint, 1,500 silver half dimes were made in the cellar of a nearby building. These half dimes were probably given out to dignitaries and friends and not released into circulation. The Mint delivered the nation’s first circulating coins on March 1, 1793: 11,178 copper cents."

Therefore the 1792 half dimes were the first coins struck by the US Mint.
BUT
The first business strikes made by the US Mint were one cent coins (the 1793 Flowing Hair/Chain Reverse).

So, in answer to the question, "What was the face value of the first coins struck by the US Mint?", the correct answer would be "half dime".
And as long as I don't specify or allude to business strikes, I'm correct.

(And I'm not going to get into the "half disme" naming discussion.)

Comments?