Seventeen ninety-five was an interesting year for the first mint. During its first ten years of existence, there was a group of Congress which was looking to close the facility and turn the responsibility for making the nation’s coinage over to one or more private contractors. These members of Congress resented the fact that they had to appropriate money to keep the mint operating. Mint employees didn’t know if they would have a job or not, and that pressure affected morale. Unlike most minting operations, the first United States Mint earned a limited amount of seigniorage which is the income a mint earns between the cost of making coins and their face value. Most mints earn an income for their governments. The mint could make little on nothing from its precious metal coinage. The reason was that the mint converted silver and gold in coins for depositors for little or no charge. The mint did not have a stock of gold and silver for its operations. The mint could charge a 5% fee if a depositor demanded immediate delivery. That demand was unusual and sometimes the mint had to spend large sums to refine the deposits up to the legal standards. The only seigniorage the mint did earn was from making copper coins. Therefore the mint had an incentive to issue as much copper as it could. Congress Demands that the Mint Expand its Silver Coinage and Introduce Gold One of the bottlenecks at the first mint were the rollers which were used to flatten out the ingots of metal into the thickness of the finished coins. The rollers were constantly breaking down. At the beginning of 1795, the mint leaders decided to strike only silver and gold coins to satisfy the demands of Congress which was pushing to mint to issue more silver pieces and introduce the gold. The mint produced half dimes and half dollars for the first five months. The mint was unable to produce silver dollars because it did not have a coin press that was large enough to strike them. Finally the large press arrived in June, and the silver production began. Here are some early silver coins. Although some half dimes were dated 1794, all of them were struck and delivered in 1795. The mint issued half dollars from January until the end of May when the new, larger coin press arrived. Once the large press arrived, depositors asked for silver dollars. The depositors were able to specify which coins they wanted. Usually they opted for the highest denominations they could get. The mint introduced the first the gold coins, the half eagle or $5 gold piece, in July. The first eagles or $10 gold coins were introduced in September. The demand for silver and gold coinage delayed the issuance of the copper coins until October. The copper half cents and cents that the mint issued for most of the rest of the year weighed 6.74 grams 13.48 grams respectively. A world shortage of copper had driven up the price. Earlier in the year, Congress had given George Washington the authority to lower the weights for the copper coins at his discretion. Washington exercised that authority at the end of the year. The weights were lowered to 5.44 grains for the half cent and 10.89 grains for the cent. The new lower weight standards made it impossible to continue to place lettering on the edge of the copper coinage. The result was that the Plain Edge copper coins went into production during last week of the year. Most of the large cents that were issued in 1795 officially weighed 13.48 grains (The weights sometimes varied) and had lettered edges. The cent above is a Sheldon variety #73. Sheldon variety #76 was minted with the lettered and plain edge. The piece shown above is a Sheldon #76b which is the plain edge variety. The lettered edge variety is classified as Sheldon #76a. The 76b is the most common Liberty Cap die variety. The head of 1795 was in lower relief than the head of 1794. This resulted in longer die lives, few dies were needed and the varieties tend to be more common. Most authorities attribute the head of 1795 dies to John Smith Gardner. The reported mintages are 37,000 pieces for the heavier, lettered edge pieces, and 501,500 cents for the plain edge pieces. These mintages are probably fairly accurate, but that cannot be said for the following years. Mintage numbers indicate the number of coins which were delivered during a given year, but it does not indicate the year which was on the coins. Old dies were used until they wore out. They were not discarded because of a change in the year.
Amazing educational read here, you definitely have a fascinating collection in high grade or condition as well! And that turban head is amazing, there's one on the bay right now but yours is much nicer of course! And your 1795, has a different reverse than the 1796 and beyond, what's up with that?
Interesting read and thanks for that! I always have problems with those early silver coins because there's no denomination on them and they all look the same size in images. I'm sure an expert has no problems telling which is which.
This is fantastic John and certainly gets me thinking about finishing my set... I am down to 8 coins to complete my large cent set. 1793 (I have a chain cent but need wreath and Lib Cap)-1797 and strangely enough the 1840 Sm date, Lg. 18.. my set even includes a few varieties not included in the Dansco 7099 (complete LC Album including all major varities) I think in all cases I may just have to eliminate my self imposed priced limits.. Side note: I also have and excelent tintype/copy of the 1792 Birch cent, cause let's be honest I doubt I'll ever own a 6 figure coin which the real ones all are Thank You Sir for reminding me "I ain't done yet"
Wonderful post, as always! One quick correction: you switched from "grams" to "grains" for weight part way through. Pretty sure all the weights are supposed to be "grams"...?
Each of the dies from this period had considerable hand work to make them. Therefore each one was slightly or sometimes considerably differed. As for the 1796, that will be covered in the next chapter.
