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An Introduction the Fugio Cent
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<p>[QUOTE="johnmilton, post: 4301740, member: 101855"]Ultimately Jarvis was unable to get European investors to fund his project, and he defaulted on his contract. Once his employees learned what was happening, they fled the scene in order to avoid possible prosecutions.</p><p><br /></p><p> Most notable among them was die maker Abel Buell who had once been convicted of counterfeiting. Buell had previously been caught “raising” genuine five shilling notes to five pound notes. He did this by erasing parts of the design and carefully drawing in the necessary bogus design elements.</p><p><br /></p><p> Since Buell was a young man, and this was his first offence, the courts went easy on him. A “C” was branded on his forehead above the hairline, the tip of one of his ears was clipped and he was thrown into prison for an indefinite period. After this experience, Buell wanted no further interactions with the 18th century justice system.</p><p><br /></p><p> Upon examining the Fugio cents that Buell and his co-workers had made, government officials discovered that the coins did not weigh enough to qualify as “cents” which were worth 1/100 of the dollar. Instead they would have to trade as “coppers,” which would be whatever the market would bear.</p><p><br /></p><p> In effort to recover its losses, government officials sold the coins to a speculator, Royal Flint, who planned to circulate the coins at a profit. Unfortunately, Flint’s timing was off. The market for light weight coppers had collapsed, and he was unable to pay his debt to the government. That landed him in jail.</p><p><br /></p><p> Ultimately a large number of the Fugio cents do go into circulation, and the coin is somewhat common in used condition. There are also a number of Mint State examples known, mostly from a hoard of the coins that were stored in the vaults of the Bank of New York in Manhattan. Over the years the bank gave some coins to favored customers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally in the late 1940s a group of numismatists were allowed to examine the remaining pieces. They found 1,641 coins remained of the hoard. There were nine Neuman die varieties among them. Today most any Fugio Cent in Mint State condition is said to be “Bank of Hoard” variety. That assumption is often correct since that was the source of most of the known Mint State pieces.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1094685[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1094686[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><i>A Bank of New York Hoard Fugio. The Newman number on this one is 8-X</i></p><p><br /></p><p> Today the Fugio cent is in a way a collector’s bargain. Compared to the more famous 1793 Chain cent, the prices are almost modest. The 2020 edition of the Red Book lists the most common variety from $200 in VG to $9,000 in Mint State. A comparable Chain cent would sell from $7,500 in Good (You will be amazed at how little design detail those coins have.) to at least, hundreds of thousands dollars in Mint State.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1094687[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1094688[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><i>A 1793 Chain Cent, the "Periods Variety," S-4</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="johnmilton, post: 4301740, member: 101855"]Ultimately Jarvis was unable to get European investors to fund his project, and he defaulted on his contract. Once his employees learned what was happening, they fled the scene in order to avoid possible prosecutions. Most notable among them was die maker Abel Buell who had once been convicted of counterfeiting. Buell had previously been caught “raising” genuine five shilling notes to five pound notes. He did this by erasing parts of the design and carefully drawing in the necessary bogus design elements. Since Buell was a young man, and this was his first offence, the courts went easy on him. A “C” was branded on his forehead above the hairline, the tip of one of his ears was clipped and he was thrown into prison for an indefinite period. After this experience, Buell wanted no further interactions with the 18th century justice system. Upon examining the Fugio cents that Buell and his co-workers had made, government officials discovered that the coins did not weigh enough to qualify as “cents” which were worth 1/100 of the dollar. Instead they would have to trade as “coppers,” which would be whatever the market would bear. In effort to recover its losses, government officials sold the coins to a speculator, Royal Flint, who planned to circulate the coins at a profit. Unfortunately, Flint’s timing was off. The market for light weight coppers had collapsed, and he was unable to pay his debt to the government. That landed him in jail. Ultimately a large number of the Fugio cents do go into circulation, and the coin is somewhat common in used condition. There are also a number of Mint State examples known, mostly from a hoard of the coins that were stored in the vaults of the Bank of New York in Manhattan. Over the years the bank gave some coins to favored customers. Finally in the late 1940s a group of numismatists were allowed to examine the remaining pieces. They found 1,641 coins remained of the hoard. There were nine Neuman die varieties among them. Today most any Fugio Cent in Mint State condition is said to be “Bank of Hoard” variety. That assumption is often correct since that was the source of most of the known Mint State pieces. [ATTACH=full]1094685[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1094686[/ATTACH] [I]A Bank of New York Hoard Fugio. The Newman number on this one is 8-X[/I] Today the Fugio cent is in a way a collector’s bargain. Compared to the more famous 1793 Chain cent, the prices are almost modest. The 2020 edition of the Red Book lists the most common variety from $200 in VG to $9,000 in Mint State. A comparable Chain cent would sell from $7,500 in Good (You will be amazed at how little design detail those coins have.) to at least, hundreds of thousands dollars in Mint State. [ATTACH=full]1094687[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1094688[/ATTACH] [I]A 1793 Chain Cent, the "Periods Variety," S-4[/I][/QUOTE]
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