Post your Fugios! Early Regular Issue Coins!
Zoins
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Steve Feltner, PCGS Director of Numismatic Education and Grading Team Leader, has concluded that Fugio Cents are regular issue coins!
Read the announcement here:
Here's a short excerpt:
PCGS wrote:
Among the evidence warranting the reclassification of the Fugio Cent as a regular-issue coin is a measure passed by the Board of Treasury on April 21, 1787, noting that the Fugio Cents were to be “of the federal standard” per weight standards stipulated in the 1786 report for United States gold, silver, and copper coins. As part of these standards, cents were to contain 157.5 grains of pure copper. So, when Congress authorized the contract for Fugio Cents on this date, the intent was to produce coins that were needed in commerce.
Here's my Fugio cent. Post yours!
Comments
Does my tattoo count?
So the $27 question is whether Fugios are now submitted under the regular tier rather than special issues.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
This is the coin featured in the Rare Coin Market Report magazine article. I was the underbidder in the Stacks auction but later tracked it down in Tony Terranova’s case at a FUN show and was able to buy it. At the time it was finest known but I believe there is another graded the same now.
Next they'll be claiming clad coins are federal issue!!!
Tempus fugit.
And for those who know me
...
A fascinating development, one that I most certainly approve!
One technical quibble: Were these authorized before, or after, the Constitution was approved and went into effect?
If before, then they are coinage of the Confederation period of the United States of America, and not the current government of the United States of America.
(edited to add): How would this affect their Legal Tender status?
TD
Club Rays. This was my first Fugio. I bought it from a New England Rare Coins Gallery auction. That was Jim Halprin's company before he went down to Texas.
My latest Fugio dug at an inconspicuous 1910's house that a 1700's site had previously stood. I'll finish cleaning it over the winter.
I'll pay you a cent for each one that you have now!
Very nice and congrats @Floridafacelifter! It's great to track down and pick up a piece!
Looks like we have both a Low Ball and Top Pop in this thread!
I do know you like misattributed pieces!
I wonder when this will ever say "Horatio Nelson Rust" vs. the current "New Haven Restrike" as these aren't restrikes and aren't associated with New Haven.
I am very happy to have these three Fugio cents in my EAC collection.
Varieties 16-N, 15-H, 14-O.
Oh, the good old days.
Beautiful coins one and all.
Thanks for sharing.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
I love this piece!
What is with the denticles on the reverse at about 6:30?
TD
Can't seem to find the reverse pic, but it's got rings on it...
Tom,
Read the article in the PCGS Market Report. We were very clear that the Fugios were struck under authority of the Confederation. We also pointed out that the Confederation government referred to itself as "federal," as did newspapers of the time. Additionally, we pointed out that the current "federal" government referred to the previous government under the Articles of Confederation as "the old federal government." That is what makes the Fugio cents regular issue US coins.
How does that affect their legal tender status? It doesn't. They were not legal tender. Neither were federally-struck large cents and half cents. No copper coins issued by the governments of the United States were legal tender until the coinage Act of April 22, 1864. when cents became legal tender to 10 cents and deuces became legal to 20 cents.
Edited to add: If you don't have access to the PCGS Market Report, email me and I'll send you an original MS Word copy of the article.
It's very interesting to think about this coin as one that was issued under the Articles of Confederation.
How many other coins or patterns were issued by the Confederations federal government? Are the Nova Constellatio patterns of 1783 also federal pieces?
Here's my AU50:
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
No other coins were "issued" by the Confederation. On April 2, 1783, Robert Morris sent Alexander Hamilton the "quint" pattern Nova Constellatio and on April 22, 1783 sent several denominations of the same design to Congress. Of course, the design was never adopted and the NC patterns were privately struck by Benjamin Dudley under the direction of Morris. So, while they are considered a US pattern, they were not directed to be struck nor struck by the government. I guess since additional pieces were requested from Morris that one could make a case that this was at government direction and thus those pieces are technically government issues. But, geez, that's really stretching the point.
See David McCarthy's article in the August 2017 issue of The Numismatist for a full discussion.
The Immune Columbia and Confederatio pieces are also thought to be privately proposed patterns, but there is no documentation.
The Fugio cent remains the only coin directly authorized by and struck under that authority of the Confederation.
If the NC patterns were requested to be struck by Robert Morris, could the NC pieces be considered to have been requested by the government given that Robert Morris was the "Superintendent of Finance of the United States" from 1781 to 1784?
I should also point out that we are not the first numismatists to point out that the Fugio cents were cents struck under the authority of the government. In the Spring 2010 issue of The C4 Newsletter, Franklin L. Noel pointed out many of the same points we made in rebutting the argument presented in Newman's 2008 book that the Fugios were "denomination-less coppers" supposedly intended to float against the price of copper: https://archive.org/details/C4NVol18No012010Spring/page/n23/mode/2up
We will take credit for pressing the issue and finally getting PCGS and others to recognized the Fugios both as cents and the first regular issue US coin. Last I heard, The Red Book will be moving these to the regular issue section as I contract issue, I think.
I would be much more inclined to agree that this is mere semantics if the vote had been taken to supersede the Articles of Confederation. Since it was not it seems a new country was begun in 1788 rather than a continuation of the old one. "Federal" is just a word. The reality behind the word suggests fugios are not US issue coins.
To each his own. Taxonomies are mere mnemonics anyway at their root.
edited to add; We do celebrate independence day as July 4, '76 so these are federal issues to the same degree the country is coming up on 250 years in 2026. I've always like fugios and there is excellent reason to consider them "US coins".
But weren't Large Cents and Half Cents and Trade Dollars and every other U.S. coin made Legal Tender by one of the modern coinage acts? I believe it was the Coinage Act of 1965. I submit that this should apply to the Fugios as well, though I doubt if I could get the Treasury Department to commit to that on letterhead.
And with that decision - the price of Fugios just went up!
WS
These are wonderfully fine points of Semantics, best argued over glasses of port and fine cigars. Was France still France when it chopped off the head of one monarch and installed a crazed mob, or when it replaced the crazed mob with yet another monarch, who may or may not have been crazy? I say yes.
The question is, are new governments responsible for the money of the old governments? The descendants of the Russian aristocracy who fled with suitcases full of paper Roubles would like to know.
Too bad those Russian aristocrats didn't live in the US. Starting in 1857, the US gov't exchanged new small cents for old foreign silver and gold, the old copper coins, including the state coinages, Fugio cents, and as far as I can tell from the records, even private issues and possibly both counterfeit and genuine British and Irish halfpence. The object was to chase all the old coins out of circulation.
I like that one A LOT!!