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Total Mintage of Fugios
MidLifeCrisis
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In another thread, a forum member asked the following question:
<< <i>has anyone ever ventured a good guess on the total mintage of the Fugios? >>
Here is some relevant information from the Coin and Currency Collections at the University of Notre Dame website.
Rival petitions to produce the coppers were received from Matthias Ogden of New Jersey and James Jarvis, who had purchased controlling interest in the Connecticut enterprise, The Company for Coining Coppers. The contract was awarded to Jarvis who had given a $10,000 bribe to William Durer, the head of the Treasury Board. Jarvis was required to produce some three hundred tons of Fugio cents. He was able to obtain about thirty tons of copper from the government to begin coining with the proviso he would pay the government for the copper through his coining operation. Jarvis had Abel Buell make the Fugio dies. He then put his father-in-law, Samuel Broome, in charge of the minting operations and went to Europe in search of copper and assistance. Jarvis sought the assistance of Matthew Boulton, owner of the Soho Mint in Birmingham, and others, but without cash up front, Jarvis was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Broome used much of the federal copper to mint about three and a half million 1787 Connecticut coppers, which were lighter in weight and thus more profitable than the Fugio's. In the end Broome made only about 400,000 Fugio cents (about four tons out of the 300 tons of coppers they had been contracted to produce) which were sent to the U.S. Treasury on May 21, 1788. That so few coins had been minted and that those coins were slightly underweight concerned the Congress, but that no payment had been made on the thirty tons of copper the federal government had delivered to Jarvis led the Congress to void his contract on September 16, 1788. This was followed by a congressional report on September 30, 1788 stating Jarvis had received a large quantity of federal copper but had only paid for a small portion and that "the Board of Treasury will take effectual measures to recover [the remainder] as soon as possible."
<< <i>has anyone ever ventured a good guess on the total mintage of the Fugios? >>
Here is some relevant information from the Coin and Currency Collections at the University of Notre Dame website.
Rival petitions to produce the coppers were received from Matthias Ogden of New Jersey and James Jarvis, who had purchased controlling interest in the Connecticut enterprise, The Company for Coining Coppers. The contract was awarded to Jarvis who had given a $10,000 bribe to William Durer, the head of the Treasury Board. Jarvis was required to produce some three hundred tons of Fugio cents. He was able to obtain about thirty tons of copper from the government to begin coining with the proviso he would pay the government for the copper through his coining operation. Jarvis had Abel Buell make the Fugio dies. He then put his father-in-law, Samuel Broome, in charge of the minting operations and went to Europe in search of copper and assistance. Jarvis sought the assistance of Matthew Boulton, owner of the Soho Mint in Birmingham, and others, but without cash up front, Jarvis was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Broome used much of the federal copper to mint about three and a half million 1787 Connecticut coppers, which were lighter in weight and thus more profitable than the Fugio's. In the end Broome made only about 400,000 Fugio cents (about four tons out of the 300 tons of coppers they had been contracted to produce) which were sent to the U.S. Treasury on May 21, 1788. That so few coins had been minted and that those coins were slightly underweight concerned the Congress, but that no payment had been made on the thirty tons of copper the federal government had delivered to Jarvis led the Congress to void his contract on September 16, 1788. This was followed by a congressional report on September 30, 1788 stating Jarvis had received a large quantity of federal copper but had only paid for a small portion and that "the Board of Treasury will take effectual measures to recover [the remainder] as soon as possible."
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Comments
<< <i>Thanks! did the govt. do any organized melting of these after the federal issues of 1793 began? >>
I don't think so. Here is some more interesting information from the Notre Dame website:
The "Congress Coppers" as the Fugio's were called did not see much use. Some may have circulated in Massachusetts as numismatists in the 1840's and 1850's considered them to be from Massachusetts. On July 9, 1789, a New York merchant named Royal Flint purchased all of the Fugios remaining in the Treasury on credit at about one-third face value. However thirteen days later on July 20 a copper panic occurred devaluing most coppers by about seventy-five per cent of their value; this loss landed Flint in debtor's prison.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>I don't recall seeing any estimates of Fugio mintages before - very interesting. The 400K number is higher than I would have imagined. >>
It's not too surprising when you think that (for example) of the original Bust Quarter mintages that only about 3% of all those coins survive today.
WHICH, is close to the combination of those totals in the Fugio Cents surviving (at least it seems to be that way!).
I suppose we could look at current rarity ratings for each variety, along with PCGS and NGC population figures to get some idea of how many are extant.
But it would be very interesting to hear educated guesses on how many Fugios survive. My NON-educated, seat-of-the-pants guess is 20,000, including the 5,000 Bank of New York examples.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>I'm not sure pop reports are any indicator of survival rate especially with early copper. The combination of problems that would cause a bodybag, plus the disdain many early copper people have for slabs, would keep pops very low compared to other series. >>
Good points kranky, and I agree.
<< <i>But it would be very interesting to hear educated guesses on how many Fugios survive. My NON-educated, seat-of-the-pants guess is 20,000, including the 5,000 Bank of New York examples. >>
I think that 20,000 would be an appropriate cap on the max that likely survive, be it in widely varying conditions!
If you take 400,000 as the approximate mintage figure, without largely varying from that amount, 20,000 surviving would account for a 5% survival.
If you take out the astonishing survival and preservation of the 5,000 Bank of New York examples, this total is brought down to about 15,000 pieces and a 3.75% survival rate.
That 3.75% survival rate (not including the astonishing 5,000 BofNY specimens), would coincide to the approximate survival rate of the Bust Quarter example I posted earlier.
(I posted Bust Quarters for the example as it was an early U.S. issue with the rarity of varieties well published to garner close overall survival ratings for all the coins produced)
<< <i>There are more than enough to go around
It's those darn AMERICAN CONGRESS reverse, FUCIO (with a C), and other rare varieties that get ya!
<< <i>I really like Kranky's new sig line! >>
Hmmmmmmmmmm
I do not own one pc of copper
Hmmmmmmmmmm