Early Public Proposal For Initial U.S. Coinage Design—July, 1789
JCH22
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Maybe one of these designs should be on a 250th Commemorative!
On July 14, 1789, about four months after the Constitution went into effect, The Pennsylvania Mercury reprinted, at the request of correspondent “T.C.D.", a Virginia gentleman’s “Remarks on the Resolve of Congress, Fixing a New Money of Account,” which was originally written in response to the Confederation's 1786 mint ordinance. T.C.D. was “sure [the remarks] will be at this time both useful and agreeable to the public; the rather as government will probably soon have the coinage under their consideration.”
The designs proposed:
All coins have the American eagle on one side, with the legend ‘U.S. of America.’”
Each denomination would have difference devices “intended to preserve the memory of the Revolution.”
For ten and five-dollar pieces : “a monument on a rock: on the pedestal, reading ‘4th July 1776,’ and in the field 13 stars-one of the rays, just above the top of the monument, pointing down. The motto “In perpetuum” to accompany the image.”’
The dollar, half-dollar, and quarter-dollar would feature “a full woolled [sic] sheep, representing a fleece- A shaft of wheat, or rather a field of it, may also be in view— with the Motto ‘Employment."'
Dime: “A dove and olive branch.“
Cent: “a man, comfortably cloathed [sic], standing erect with a spade in his hand— With the Motto, ‘Fro[m] indust[ry], cents become eagles.”
The article, as quoted, was from a reprint in The Daily Advertiser (NY), July 18, 1789.
Comments
I love it!
Be even cooler if they not only followed this but also went with the human imperfections found all throughout the early coinage that you lose with modern laser perfection.