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Nice coins, Ryan, Rollo, and Irvin.
I received the token that I had posted previously, and it looks better in hand than in the seller's pics. It has definitely seen some circulation, and I still think it has been cleaned at some point, but it looks a lot less "messed with" than I was expecting. And, it is the plain-edge copper version, too.
Seller's pictures first, then mine:
After reading part 2, I still have more questions than answers. And, while a new discussion is a positive development, I personally don’t care for some of the dismissals made by the author, who claimed he did not want to speculate.
The authors spend a good bit of time discussing the gap in $1 denomination Continental notes between 1776 and 1778, as Newman made this the focus of his theories on the Continental dollar. They point out that Newman claimed the intentional gap was done to make way for a circulating pewter dollar coin. The authors shoot this down by saying the Congress printed equal numbers of each denomination of notes, at each printing, and that if they stopped printing dollars for that reason, they would have had to strike over 1 million pewter dollars to make up the gap. Therefore, this can’t be the case. Then the authors go a step further to claim the Congress was closely monitoring the need for currency and the real reason for the gap was that they judged that no dollar notes were needed in these years. These two explanations by the authors are directly at odds.
Further, if no notes were needed, that would have been the perfect time to experiment with a coinage, because there would be no reason to try to strike a million pieces. It could also have been done as a sample coinage presented to the Congress by an engraver. Perhaps the June 26, 1776 and December 26th, 1776 newspaper descriptions of a base-medal, dollar-sized coin are evidence that some experimentation; official or otherwise; was underway (even if it never made full, large scale production), and these first-hand accounts were not merely a rumor that "adds nothing to our pursuit.”
The paper currency was worth very little, and so too would a pewter dollar have been. I cannot imagine it would have been a popular coin and I have never understood how it could have been accepted as money at a time when merchants cared how much copper was in their halfpennies. The idea of it being used to replace 12-14 coppers is interesting, but probably unwieldy. This could explain its lack of wide production and circulation, if it really was made for the Congress. Further, the Robert Morris prototype of 1783 could have been a Continental dollar, with further trials struck in brass copper and pewter. Copies could also have been made by others.
A general problem I have is that the E.G. designer’s initials don’t appear on all dies, and I think too much emphasis is placed on finding a single manufacturer. The Continental dollar issue is eerily reminiscent of 18th century patriotic medals produced by multiple die sinkers of limited engraving talent. Often a popular medal was produced to celebrate an occasion, and then copy cats made their own versions. Some engravers signed their work, others did not. This happened a good bit with Vernon medals, for instance. There are some very crudely made Continental dollars, and there are some nicer ones, and some with initials, some without. They could have been made in 1776 and again in 1783.
Overall, however, I find the Continental dollars, even the nicest ones in existence, to be extremely low quality in engraving. If these were sold as medals, the quality was extremely bad. It is also unusual to see a milled edge on something not intended as money. They certainly do not compare to the work of Gauldet. Based on his featured 1767 medal, he had actual engraving talent, none of which is seen on the Continental dollars. They could just as easily be private patterns of a coinage that went nowhere; either in 1776 or 1783; and then copycats could have made more to fill popular demand from collectors.
Overall, the bulk of information presented is equality as circumstantial as the information covered by past authors. Personally, I doubt the Continental dollars were widely known or well distributed, if they were official issues, and I think it likely that they could have been either patterns or medals, and that multiple manufacturers were involved. They were a failed experiment or a crudely produced medal. Yet, they were definitely produced between 1776 and 1783, and I still find them quite fascinating; but clearly, more research needs to be done, on at least two continents.
A very sensible summary coinman. One thing that I would bet money on (not a lot) at this juncture is that these pieces are not historically significant, which we all thought they were back in the day. They might make for a good story, perhaps already do.
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