I have an abiding interest in coinage of the 1700's, both American, European and Latin American. Recently I was doing some study into the New Jersey Cent pieces issued by the newly independent state in 1786 and 1787. As many of you may know these New Jersey "Cents" are frequently encountered in well worn condition. They must have circulated far into the 19th century along side the US minted Cents, the ones we call "large cents". What intrigues me about these NJ Cents is that they must have been noticeably lighter than the US cents they circulated with. In weight they seem closer to the US half cent. So, although we call these NJ coppers (the term used by the NJ legislature itself when first authorized) NJ "Cents", did they circulate as the equivalent of the US large cent or were they valued on the street as a half cent? Anyone know how these, and probably the other state coppers from Conn, Vermont, NY and Mass., circulated in terms of their value? Thanks.
I know the colonial coppers typically had a weight somewhere on par with a contemporary British half penny, and would have been familiar to most people at least up to 1800. As to the conversion, I would imagine they were accepted as current British half pennies would be. It would have been similar to the situation in Quebec where British and Quebecois coinage were circulating simultaneously until the harmonization of the Canadian monetary system.
Thanks and you just may be right about that. I did some weighing of coppers from the period" two farthings from the late 1600's 4.9 and 5.3 grams, four half pennies from the mid 1700's at 9.2, 9.8, 9.9 and 9.4 grams, a 1723 Wood's Hibernia at 7.04 grams, a British evasion token of 1774 at 6.8 grams, an Irish half penny at 6.4 grams, an 1806 Irish farthing at 4.2 grams. In addition an 1829 US half cent weighed in at 5.2 grams and an 1846 large US cent at 10.1 grams and an 1822 cent at 10.4 grams. It would appear, from this regrettably small sample, that the US cent had a gram or so more copper than the British half penny. The only NJ copper I have is a 1786 with some obvious wear and it comes in at 8.4 grams, so maybe minted at some nine grams. That weight would put it in the British half penny category which is pretty close to that of a US cent. I guess that I would conclude that the NJ copper did circulate at a value of one cent, rather than one half of a cent. Being off by a gram or two probably did not much affect its acceptance in trade. If we were talking about gold or silver it probably would have mattered, but for coppers I guess not, unless one was trying to unload a barrel full, in which case it would probably be weighed and assigned its metallic value. Thanks for the response you gave me.
I do not believe that weight or intrinsic value was too consequential for copper pieces - curiously at least with British pieces - they got larger in farthings and halfpennies from the 17th to the 18th centuries. 17th century English farthing and halfpenny tokens from ca. 1649-1672 were small by comparison to the not oft issued regal coinage. Halfpenny weights were increased with the 1799 and 1806 issued coins - no doubt made possible by Matthew Boulton's steam coin presses that permitted significantly greater striking pressures and made larger coins much easier to strike. I know with Scottish coinage from the late 17th and very early 18th - bodles didn't really correspond to post 1707 British farthings, they were more like a 1/3 of a halfpenny instead of a 1/2 of a halfpenny but they circulated as farthings until the 1760s-1780s or so. The Bawbee or Scottish sixpence circulated as a halfpenny - which in essence given the 12:1 ratio of Scots Sterling to British Sterling essentially it was the same value. Weight and dimensions were much more consequential with silver and gold of course. Copper and bronze coinage has long been viewed as just a subsidiary necessity and not a coin of the realm.
The state coppers were basically made to resemble the British half pence in size and weight. And the half pence was roughly the value of the US cent. As to the values at which they circulated, than could be a bit more confusing because with the exception of the New Jersey coppers the coins were not legal tender. So their values were typically expressed in the number of coppers per shilling. In 1790 there was a crash in the values of the coppers and the number per coppers needed per shilling increased greatly, except for the NJ because they were legal tender in their home state.
Yes, I understand that the NJ coppers were valued by the state at 15 to the shilling. Since in Britain it was 12 pence to the shilling this seems to have given the NJ pieces a value closer to the penny than the half penny. This, of course, was complicated by the fact that NJ had its own shilling, going back to when the Colony had valued its shillings based on the Spanish milled dollar at 7 shillings, six pence per dollar, a rate which overvalued the NJ shilling compared to Sterling. I wish I could find some kind of primary source document, bill of sale, advertising, that would have stated how a purchase price for a product would be based on the mdium of exchange to be used. Thanks for your response. If you find any more, please let me know.
One good point of reference is to look in newspapers from that time with advertisements - sometimes you can get lucky and even find exchange rates for different states currencies. They can be found in archives, on microfilm or sometimes even actual newspapers - I own a copy of "The Gazette of the United States" from 1791 that is fascinating for information on early numismatics - this particular example has notice of the appointment of David Rittenhouse as mintmaster.
I do the same thing but most of the official releases are for specie coinage conversion, not the coppers, and the advertisements in newspapers for goods rarely seem to indicate the prices or how the costs will be paid.
That is something that confuses a lot of people. They don't seem to realize that although all of the colones used "shillings' in their money of account, a shilling from one place was NOT the same thing as a shilling from another, they just have the same name. The only thing that was consistent among the colonies was that they all used the Spanish milled dollar as a common base, but in each colony it was worth a different number of "shillings". And you have to recognize that these colonial "shillings" had no direct relationship to the British shilling. You can only compare them by comparing them to the common base the Spanish dollar. As mentioned the NJ copper was 15 to the NJ shilling and the NJ shilling was 7 and a half shillings to the dollar. That works out to 112 coppers to the dollar. The British shilling was 4 1/2 to the dollar which would be 108 half pence to the dollar. When it came into existence the US cent was 100 to the dollar. The New York money of account was 90 New York pennies to the Spanish dollar etc. Something else to understand is that the various colonies "money of account" only existed in theory and on paper. Other than the state coppers not of the colony "shillings", pennies, or other denominations had any physical existence. So anytime a transaction was made the type of payment being tendered would have to converted in Spanish milled dollars, and then converted into the local money of account. It could be a real mess. On and when you do see a price mentioned in contemporary documents you would probably have to assume it is in the local money of account unless specified in some other currency.
Thanks, Conder. I discovered this by accident when my work as a docent at a historical Revolutionary War tavern had me show visitors the price list of food and beverages the tavern offered circa 1770. The lists also had the typical wages of the day so customers could see what the food and drink cost as a percentage of the daily wage. I noticed pretty quickly that both the wages and prices seemed a bit high compared to the same figures from Britain. Only then did I discover that the shilling was the inflated NJ shilling, not the shilling sterling of Britain. This tavern was on the main north south highway of NJ close to the Delaware river and Philadelphia so I imagine the tavern keeper must have had a very difficult time reckoning bills and that did not get any better if the patron offered to pay in paper currency, another matter of considerable concern.
