Federal Contract Coinage 1 1

[Henri Charriere]

From a recently released press release...

PCGS Reclassifies Early American Fugio Cent as Regular-Issue Federal Coin (and will list them under the Topic heading above).  Comments?

Edited January 12, 2022 by Quintus Arrius
Missing word

[Zebo]

I just came across that and was going to ask the same question. Interesting to say the least. I found the below to be interesting - a very close vote. While I do not play much in that area, I always liked the coin and will one day add it to my collection.

 

 

[RWB]

On 1/11/2022 at 10:41 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

From a recently released press release...

PCGS Reclassifies Early American Fugio Cent as Regular-Issue Federal Coin (and will list them under the Topic heading above).  Comments?

This seems reasonable, although they were not issued by the Federal government. They were authorized by the Confederation government as legal coinage and should be considered part of the standard U.S. series....or have I misunderstood?

Edited January 12, 2022 by RWB

[Henri Charriere]

The U.S. MINT dates to 1792.  Your Fugios and "Continental Currency," coins both of which appear to share a similar, if not identical reverse, precede that date.

I wonder if a simple request to accommodate the Fugio in a PCGS Set Registry prompted this decision.

[DWLange]

I agree with Roger that these are not "federal" coins but rather "confederational" coins. They are nonetheless legal issues of the United States, though made by a commercial enterprise under contract to it, and I include an example in my ANA Summer Seminar class titled Collecting United States Type Coins. Their legal tender status is doubtful, since they are not denominated. It was the custom at that time for copper coins of similar size to pass at roughly halfpenny value, though their exact value as reckoned in pound currency varied from one state to the other until a federal coinage was established in 1792. They continued to circulate thereafter by custom alone for several decades until scooped up by collectors.

[Conder101]

They weren't legal tender.  On the other hand neither were half cents or large cents, flying eagle cents or copper nickel indian head cents when they were made, so that doesn't matter.

[Henri Charriere]

🐓 :  Legal or not legal tender? 🤔 

Q.A.  I believe a quick three-party conference call 📞 is in order to settle this once and for all.

[RWB]

prime fillet = legally tender (med rare)....yum