Origin of Continental Currency?

I’ve had both. Regardless of the opinions and theories the continental dollar is to me an American colonial that I’d love to own

 

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I’m also of the opinion that the crudity of the strikes and dies doesn’t marry with the quality of British strikes of that period. And being struck in pewter. Along with the EG fecit especially being attributed to Elisha Gallaudet I don’t think any British die sinker would ever put that on their dies. To me they’re American all the way

 

@TypeCoin971793 I followed your advice. They were so affordable that I picked up two! I think that will satisfy my need. Thanks for the heads up on these.

 

I have read that one of the reasons why these 1776 dated factional Continental Currency pieces were so common was that large numbers of them were printed to pay the troops. The recipients were not pleased to receive a big stack of low value notes as their pay. I have owned this one for many years.



The firm of Hall and Sellers was the successor to the firm (Ben) Franklin and Hall. Franklin sold his share of the printing business in February 1766 to his partner, David Hall. Hall took on Sellers as a partner in May of that year.

Here is an interesting Continental note. If you read the legal notice on this piece, it says that the Continental Congress, meeting in Baltimore, approved its issue. The Second Continental Congress met in Baltimore from December 20, 1776 until February 27, 1777 because they feared that the British would capture Philadelphia.

The Congress moved back to Philadelphia, but had to flee in September 1777 when the British really did take the city. They met in Lancaster for one day and then York, Pennsylvania until June 1778.

 

So it is entirely likely a Continental soldier may have carried these notes. Lordy, I love holding history like that.

 

Well, it's possible. Let's put it that way.

 

One thing nobody's mentioned is that there are also a lot of really good quality (legal) replicas out there. One example is the HK-853 so-called dollar, but there are others.

Wow, that's a lot less than I thought it would be. Continental notes are surprisingly affordable, even in upper circulated grades, especially compared to early Federal coins. It's kind of amazing to me that you can have an XF-AU continental note with the Fugio design for 1/3 what you might pay for a comparable grade / common variety Fugio cent!

That is actually a really good point. English coins, and even Conder tokens, of the period were typically very high quality. Compare the average English coin to the average Fugio cent, and it's a huge world of difference.

 

The Fugio Cents could be circulated as "coppers" which met you could spend them for somethng.

Continental Currency was nothing but worthless or near worthless paper. The phrase "Not worth a Continental" comes to mind. Speculators would buy large quantities of it for pennies or less on the dollar, hoping that the Federal Governemnt would redeem it one day. All the government ever offered was to exchange it for bonds at the rate of 100 to 1.

 

AND printed in 1776!