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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;john59, post: 2131679, member: 73760&quot;]Some Fugio dies were produced in the 1850&#039;s probably at the Scovill mint in Waterbury, Connecticut and probably at the request of the numismatist and lawyer, Charles I. Bushnell. The Scovill Manufacturing Company had been a major supplier of Hard Times Tokens as well as a producer of various buttons and small metal objects. Their is no evidence as to the origin of the Fugio dies but it is known that Bushnell had the Scovill Company produce several fantasy colonial items for him in the 1850&#039;s. According to a notice in the <i>American Journal of Numismatics </i> from January of 1873 (on p. 72) three sets of Fugio dies were acquired by Horatio N. Rust in 1858, one die was acquired in Bridgeport and five others were from New Haven. These were, of course, the dies created at the Waterbury mint. It is not known if Rust was part of the deception or if he genuinely thought the dies were original Fugio dies. According to the journal notice Rust used these dies to strike off three to four hundred copies of the Fugio cent in copper as well as some in silver and gold at the Scovill mint in Waterbury. In the past these copies were incorrectly associated with some fantasy tokens created by the teenage C. Wyllys Betts in New Haven. It was thought Betts had located some original dies and used them to made some restrikes. From this mistaken attribution the Fugio copies have become known as the &quot;New Haven Restrikes.&quot; However, they were minted in Waterbury, from new dies created in Waterbury. Thus they are not restrikes from the original dies, nor are they from New Haven! Related to this is an item thought to have been a pattern used in the creation of the Fugio hub. This is now considered to be a fantasy piece created by Bushnell in the 1850s.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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