Cool Finds (Updated Fugio pics)

skingspan

So last night my father in law dropped off a box of coins that belonged to his grandfather. They have been in the attic for 30 years. He said they were old russian coins. I started searching through the coins this morning and found some really cool thick heavy copper coins from russia between 1750 and 1790. Then I came across a few Indian head cents one with full liberty. There was also a civil war token in the box from 1863 with a snake on the back and says beware. The best find in the box has to be the Fugio cent. Not sure of the condition. Half the Numerals on the sundial are readable. The Date, Fugio and mind your business are readable with the naked eye. On the reverse I can make out "We are one" with my loupe but United States is hard to see. I would love to post pics but they come out too dark on my scanner. My wife just told me that she almost told her dad that I wouldn't want them because I don't collect foreign coins. Glad she decided not to.....

Update:

So I had dinner with my inlaws tonight. It turns out that the coins belonged to by wife's grandfather. He was a driver for the daughter-in-law of General Butler from the Civil War. Butler was also a politician in Massachusetts. These coins supposedly once belonged to Butler and were given to my wifes grandfather as a gift. I did a little research on Gen. Butler and found some interesting info. During the civil war while he occupied new orleans he inscribed in a statue of Andrew Jackson: "The Union Must and Shall be preserved". One of the coins in the box is a Civil War token with that same inscription on it and the bust of Andrew Jackson. I have seen the token on a few websites but can't seem to find any history on it. I am thinking that there must be some type of connection here. Are there any Civil war token experts on this site that could give me more info?

mercurynut

grip

Goober

Cool! My inlaws dropped of a sock filled with rare coins for me to look at. It was a bunch of mid 70's halves and Ikes, all circulated.

LanLord

Keep those inlaws, they sound cool.

Mine are mostly cool, but have never given me any coins on that level.

coinguy89

Mine are okay, but defiently not as good as yours, keep them happy.

skingspan

They are very cool in-laws. I can't wait to tell them what was in the box. I just realized there is quite a bit of silver coins in the box as well most of it canadian.

skingspan

Anyone know the mintage figures on Fugio Cents?

Conder101

Without checking I believe it was around 400,000. Roughly three of the thirty tons of copper the government loaned to Jarvis were actually struck into Fugios. There were possibly some more smaller coinages later after the coining company broke up, using the leftover dies of the old company.

boz

Now those are great freebies

skingspan

ttt

goose3

Fugio's are Cool!

try to get a decent pic to post!

skingspan

I scanned the fugio...the pics are kind of dark and huge so dialup modem people beware. Someday soon I will invest in a digital camera.

obv
rev

goose3

I don't know much about them but I suspect JadeCoin could elaborate on it if you asked them. Looks pretty nice.

cdwegner

I'm about 5 pages from finishing Jeff Shaara's Rise to Rebellion.

Ben Franklin mentioned designing some paper currency, but no talk about coins, yet.. Of course, Rise to Rebellion ends in 1776 and the Fugio's were a little later, right? (1787?)

Maybe in the sequel, The Glorious Cause, the Fugio's will be mentioned.

c

JadeRareCoin

I don't know much about them but I suspect JadeCoin could elaborate on it if you asked them. Looks pretty nice.

I saw skingspan's Fugio in another thread and posted the following: Newman 12-X, R.3, although it's difficult to attribute from the scan. I would grade the coin as VG.

What's really, really cool about skingspan's coins is the provenance. If we can prove that these coins belonged to General Butler, then the coins will automatically increase in value, especially if they remain as an intact collection. The CWT inscription theory is interesting as well. Were there any documents included with the coins? Those could be more valuable than the coins. Please tell us more.....

skingspan

There were no documents, just the old box of coins. My father-in-law also has a sword that supposedly belonged to butler. I guess there is really no way to prove any of it though. I will be seeing my father in law again this coming weekend so I will try to get more information out of him. I may take a trip to the local library in Lowell MA to see if I can find any books about butler and the inscription in the statue.