My take on the Nova Constellatio

[MikeKing]

Newbie I am so forgive me for inaccuracies. There's a lot more that can be said about Morris, and his proposed coinage for the first US Mint, but that's for another post for sure. Myself, I still haven't figured out the whole mill, bit, mark, pieces of eight thing...

 

But posting this helps me to get more in tune with the coins I just love collecting, so here goes:

 

1783 "Large US" Constellatio Nova with Pointed Rays

 

This is the scarcer of the two; the "large" and the "small" US. (I was just scanning Heritage's auction archives and found only 13 of these particular kinds of Nova Contellatios auctioned off in the past SEVEN years!!! I don't know if this truly reflects their scarcity or my method of searching.)

 

As of 12/06, only 18 have been graded by NGC, 68 by PCGS, although, I am sure that number will increase as more colonial coppers are graded by the TPG's over the years. Also, numbers such as these are not reliable in that they include resubmissions and crossovers that have been unaccounted for).

 

The Constellatio's are part of the Confederation Era, privately made, coppers.

 

Louis Jordan points out that based on the EYE, the word "Constellatio" appears on top and therefore one could conclude that the correct order for the name of this coin would be "Constellatio Nova", however, he states this was not the intent of Morris and Dudley (Morris was the Superintendant of Finance during the Confederation, and Dudley was the British engraver he hired to design the coin). He draws this conclusion from both a diary entry where Morris' pattern was referred to as a "Nova Constellatio", and the pattern itself apparently showing that this is the word order.

 

Apparently, Congress rejected the 1783 pattern of Morris, so he went into a private moneymaking venture with some others and had these coppers made in England and sent to America around 1785. They were made in the latter half of 1785 and took the date off the pattern it seems. When those dies failed, the date 1785 was then used. These coins had quite a bit of usage in NY and Massachusetts (where they were the predominant copper in 1788) and some other states. When they began minting coins in CT, NY etc...a law was passed to prevent use of the Nova, and they were melted down or illegally used as planchets.

 

About this coin:

 

The planchet is flawless, with a beautiful brownish-red glossy sheen. The strike is somewhat soft at certain areas, as you can see, but it's basically all there, and you know what you're looking at. The centering is pretty fantastic, I think. A very nice piece of > 230 yr old copper in Very Fine condition, with great eye appeal.

 

[robec1347]

Here's mine. Not in quite the condition yours is in. Has some corrosion on the obverrse. Good information! I didn't really know anything about the coin with the exception of it being colonial.

[TomB]

Your coin is outstanding, Mike. I have a question for you; the NOVA CONSTELLATIO side (I would assume this is the reverse since there is no date on this side) appears to have two areas of denticles, milling or reeding that look out of place. Are these really there? If so, what are they?

[MikeKing]

Tom, the two areas you are talking about are on all the 'large US' variety, so that would lead me to believe it was incused on the working die, and not a planchet issue. I don't know what they are. They are not denticles, or at least they don't match the kind of denticle used with this coin. I remember reading somewhere, speculation about what they might be and if I remember correctly, no one really knows (though I could be wrong about this). So the answer is I don't know. If I find the reference about this, I'll post it.

 

As to which is the obverse or reverse, is the side with the date always the obverse?

 

edited to add:

 

I'll quote this from a Heritage Auction

http://coins.heritageauctions.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=400&Lot_No=50#

 

The obverse die was damaged prior to this coin being struck, with two separate areas that show curved dentils through the stars and rays. This may have been caused when the reverse die loosened and partially tilted at an angle in the coining press and was struck into the obverse die. Although technically this type of damage would be considered die clashing, this is not the usual form seen. Taking first the area of die clashing below ATIO, in this instance there is a clear round rim with dentils reaching toward the letters, with a small portion continuing into the O of CONSTELLATIO. The dentils are shaped like pickets in a fence, straight sided and well separated from each other. On the other die clashing located below NSTEL the raised die marks have the appearance of normal dentils seen on the present coin, rounded hills that are much closer together, matching the reverse dentils on the present coin.

.

 

 

but something in my memory tells me I read a contradictory statement.