Who were the original collectors of US coinage in the 1790s?
291fifth
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Were many of them actually in Europe? Who was actively collecting in the US itself?
All glory is fleeting.
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The guy that held onto that 1794 flowing hair that sold for ten million.
The new federal government! Same today!
Who were the original collectors of US coinage in the 1790s?
Rich people
People who appreciated modern junk.
The first year of issue for all US Mint denominations have a higher survival rate than following years, I would expect many were saved by those wanting an example of the first year issue of these new coins that were emblematic of Liberty. Also, David Rittenhouse and a few others had coins from the first issue. I don't believe that many were from Europe. When rare 1790's US coins started having numismatic value premiums after around 1850, the heavily circulated examples were saved.
I'd say a few U.S. Mint officials who set aside some coins. I've heard that some early pieces were once owned by David Rittenhouse, the first mint director.
As for "average Joe" collectors in the U.S. in the 1790s, there weren't any.
At that time, the few collectors of Americana were evidently mostly interested in colonial issues; ancient coins and medals were probably more popular among the known collectors. Not much is known with certainty about many of them. Du Simitiere and Eliot were dead by 1790. Thomas Jefferson had a collection, as did John Quincy Adams (but both undoubtedly contained counterfeits). By 1790, possibly the best known person who had a collection that included colonial and early federal coins was Charles Wilson Peale. He is the Peale of Peale's Museum (which issued a token that is highly sought after).
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Ben Franklin died in 1790.
Farmers. Washington and Jefferson were farmers, and so was William Strickland, a distant relative of Washington, that picked up the Lord St. Oswald coins while visiting from England to research agricultural techniques.
Wikipedia page for William Strickland (farmer).
As far as I know, there were not that many collectors of these coins until the 1850s
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Brady proved me wrong!
Certainly some of the more well to do would have had small collections... but fortunes were fleeting at that time, and likely some collections became sustenance.... no doubt though, with some of the surviving coins we see, there were those that preserved a few for our present day viewing pleasure. Cheers, RickO
I suspect if you could transport yourself back to the 1790s, most people would think you were an idiot for building a substantial collection of U.S. coins. A few pieces were saved as curiosities, but clearly no one cared much about it, otherwise we'd have a lot more high grade survivors than we do today.
Perhaps what we think was 'collecting' was the wealthy just storing their wealth by 'saving' the coins of the time
JMO
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
U.S. coins, especially gold and silver, were scarce to non-existent in circulation for many decades, especially in rural areas. Foreign issues were more prevalent in many places through the 1850s. Keeping U.S. coins from being exported and melted was perhaps the biggest problem that the mint faced in the early days, so obtaining examples to collect wasn't all that easy for everyone.
Probably mainly Europeans, where the real money was. Neat tokens of a young country. Yale was named after a commercial baron donated the fundes, of the same name, at the urging of Cotton Mather.
Interesting idea logger7
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Merchants, men and women with trades, banks.....I imagine they saw more coins than most. Why wouldn't they have save something that might of appealed to them......if they could afford to do so?
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
I doubt many people could afford to retain money once in hand back then. Food and firearms were the bigger concerns. A dollar in 1799 brought what $200 buys today.
Trust me when I say that reasonable people **could **afford to save money back in the day, just my opinion based on family history.
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
I think our modern perception of life in the 1700s in America is often not quite accurate. I'm no expert, but I've seen it quoted in several biographies and histories that the standard of living here was vastly higher than in Europe. The land was resource-rich and it was being developed freely by industrious men and women. There were plenty of poor people sure, but also plenty of nouveau-riche and a huge middle class. It's also quite possible that the distribution of wealth was far broader than today.
Our current concepts are somewhat overly influenced (I think) by our parents & grandparents recollections of the Great Depression & the world wars.
This is an excellent observation. People came here because the conditions in Europe were terrible. Land was not available for people of modest means and the people with money made sure they kept it ... no trickle down allowed. While it took place in the 1845-52 period, the Irish Potato Famine was a good example. Potatoes were the food for the common people in Ireland. When the crops failed they had nothing to eat in spite of the fact that wheat crops in Ireland would have been adequate to feed the population. Wheat, however, was a cash crop for export and export it they did. (My great grandfather along with his mother, brothers and sisters arrived in the US from Ireland in 1850. His father (my great great grandfather) had died in Ireland in 1848, circumstances unknown, at age 27 or 28.)