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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;900fine, post: 1539224, member: 6036&quot;]It&#039;s so true.... it&#039;s easy to overlook the obvious, notably the fact that they didn&#039;t always overdate; sometimes they did, sometimes they didn&#039;t.</p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps that dichotomy is a reflection of Mint staff; some were trained in Europe, some weren&#039;t.</p><p><br /></p><p>David Rittenhouse, first director of the US Mint, was completely self-educated. He never attended elementary school, and yet became a man of great distinction. An inspiration for us all !</p><p><br /></p><p>The list goes on, and it&#039;s certainly reasonable to conclude that European minting practices had great influence at the nascent US Mint. But we broke away from some of their practices - as we cantakerous Americans so often do. Yes, we inherited their influences, but to great degree insisted on doing things our own way. The fact that we often chose not to overdate (as evidenced by the two examples I quoted above, as well as many more) suggests two different ways of thinking.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve often wondered if their were case-by-case debates as to whether or not to overdate. We have Freedom of Speech, and we&#039;re not afraid to use it !</p><p><br /></p><p>I can just see them saying &quot;Just because we&#039;ve always done it that way doesn&#039;t mean we have to keep on doing it !&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Our Revolution gave us a blank white sheet of paper on which we could re-invent ourselves. We could choose to retain or reject European traditions based mostly on their merit - or lack thereof. I think that&#039;s a huge part of our success over the years.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of that from the simple fact that sometimes we overdated, other times not.... hmmm....[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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