I'll see your groovy love token Shieldnick and raise you two more. "Papa" and "Mama". Papa's host coin was from the Centennial year of 1876. Mama's got an engraving of a famous landmark that's often used as a symbol for America.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Here is a Spanish Colonial (Mexico City) half-real I found here on St. Simons Island, Georgia, while metal detecting in 1995. I dug it on the site of a villa once occupied by James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony. Oglethorpe wouldn't have been the one who lost this coin - he left Georgia and returned to England in 1743, well before the Revolution. This is likely a relic of a later plantation-era homesite built near Oglethorpe's earlier villa. This is appropriate to the topic at hand because of the year it was struck. It was my first dug coin find from the 1700s, so needless to say I was very excited. The next morning I went back out there and found a second half-real about five feet from where I had dug the 1776. The second one was in nicer condition and dated 1787.
May 15, 1776, Virginia declares independence from Great Britain. A radical seal is designed with tyranny being overthrown. Robert Scot engraves the Virginia Seal on paper money with Sic Semper Tyrannis - thus always to tyrants:
An eagle, lady liberty, MacArthur smoking a pipe, and a cow in my brook trout hole. What's more American than that?
Happy 4th all. Is everyone aware that the Declaration of Independence was not signed on the 4th? Here's a few facts: -The Declaration of Independence was formally declared on 7-2-1776 -On 7-4-1776 The Continental Congress approved the final text -The Declaration was signed on 8-2-1776 -A 5 member committee drew up the Declaration -Robert Livingston was one of the 5 but he never signed the Declaration as he felt it was too soon -Congress made 86 changes to Thomas Jefferson's first draft -Those changes resulted in a reduction of the Declaration by 1/4th -Jefferson had strong language condemning the British slave trade despite owning slaves himself and was very outspoken when Congress deleted it -The 2 youngest signers were from South Carolina and they were both 26 yrs old -The oldest signer was Benjamin Franklin at the age of 70 -9 of the signers died before the Revolutionary War ended -2 of the designers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the 50th anniversary of the approval of the Declaration, on 7-4-1826 -The last person to live after the 50th anniversary who signed the Declaration was Carroll from Maryland
One fun fact about the document on display in Washington. There is a full dirty handprint in the middle of the document. It almost looks like a childs handprint. I thought was quite interesting and asked about it and was told that was an average sized mans hand 250 years ago. I never knew the average person was much larger now than they were during the birth of our nation..... So, I would have been a tall man in the 18th century!
On the back of the Declaration is in hand writing, the name of the document and the date. No one knows who wrote this but it is believed that it was done after the document was signed, rolled and ready to be filed, which was the custom in those days.
