One hundred years ago, 1916 was a banner year for numismatics. After Charles Barber’s eponymous designs had graced the Barber Quarter, Barber Dime, and Barber Half Dollar from 1892 to 1915, each of these three denominations received distinct facelifts the following year with new, fresh designs. This was a break from tradition because each of […]
Long Story
A Shot In The Dark
A shadowy silhouette of a man moves down the street. His shoulders and the top of his felt Stetson fedora are briefly lit in the pools of light beneath the street lamps as he passes. His face is a constant shadow. He pauses at the corner, and a quick flare of light exposes his features […]
Minting Mistakes: Error Coins and Their Collectability
A basic understanding of coin collecting reveals that condition, date, and scarcity are all key components of what makes a coin collectible. One area of collecting, however, focuses on mistakes made by the mint, or “error coins.” Even if a coin is an otherwise common year, it may be a valuable piece if simply produced […]
Connecticut-Created Colonial Coppers
Few coins have as much rustic historical appeal and offer such endless variety as the Connecticut Coppers of 1785 to 1788. These pieces circulated in early America as a medium of exchange used in colonial times, both before the US Mint was eventually established in the 1790s and even for several years thereafter. Meant to […]
The Other Exposition Commemoratives
The 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition is very familiar to most numismatists, and the $1, $2 ½, and $50 gold commemoratives created as part of this event remain popular to this day. The first gold commemoratives produced for an exposition, however, were envisioned and struck more than 10 years earlier in 1903 for the similarly significant Louisiana […]
From Pocket Change to Work of Art: Trompe l’oeil and Paper Money
Collectors of American paper money have long appreciated the artistry involved in the carefully engraved and printed designs of U.S. currency. What some collectors may not be as familiar with, however, is the tradition of artists painting paper money as part of their work. Artists such as William Harnett, Victor Dubreuil, Alfred Meurer, and John […]
Artistry and Coin Designs
From the earliest beginnings of the U.S. Mint in the 1790s until the early 1900s, designs for American coinage were not typically produced by outside artists. Instead, the images displayed on our nickels, cents, gold coins, and more tended to be produced in a relatively insular manner by a small group of in-house designers at […]
Challenges and Coinage in Early America
With the ease of today’s credit or debit cards and a seemingly endless supply of change collecting in our desk drawers and back pockets, it can be difficult to imagine that early Americans once did not have enough coins in circulation to complete the simplest of transactions. However, the lack of circulating coinage in early […]
