Morgan dollar more visually attractive than another with the same grade. This gives the smart collector the opportunity to “cherrypick,” or examine multiple slabbed coins and select the highest-quality coin for the desired grade. This process builds a better collection than simply accepting a TPG’s assigned grades, and is summed up in the guidance of “Buy the coin, not the slab.” (Also note that a coin certified as, for example, MS-64 might have greater eye appeal—and therefore be more desirable to a greater number of collectors—than a less attractive coin graded MS-65.)
Over the years, collectors have observed a trend nicknamed “gradeflation”: the reinterpretation, in practice, of the standards applied to a given grade over time. For example, a coin evaluated by a leading TPG in 1992 as MS-64 might be graded today as MS-65 or even MS-66.
The general effect of third-party grading and authentication has been to increase buyers’ and sellers’ comfort levels with the perceived quality of rare coins in the marketplace. And, as mentioned, there still exists the potential for keen-eyed collectors to cherrypick coins that are “exceptional for their grade.”
AN INTRODUCTION TO UNITED STATES COINS
The Spanish Milled Dollar
The Spanish milled dollar, valued at 8 reales, and otherwise known as the Pillar dollar or piece of eight, has been given a place in romantic fiction unequaled by any other coin.
This time-honored piece and its fractional parts (one-half, one, two, and four reales) were the principal coins of the American colonists and were the forerunners of our own silver dollar and its fractional divisions. Thomas Jefferson even recommended to the Continental Congress on September 2, 1776, that the new country adopt the silver Spanish milled dollar as its monetary unit of value.
The coin shown above bears the
Money of the Early Americans
The saga of American money covers a period of nearly four centuries, from 1620 to the present. It began when the early European settlers in New England started trading with Native Americans for furs and commodities that could be exported to Britain. The furs, tobacco, and lumber exports were used to purchase needed items that could not be produced locally. Trade was carried on with the Indians through the use of barter and strings of wampum, which were fashioned from clam shells in the form of beads. Beaver skins, wampum, and, in Virginia, tobacco, soon became the commonly accepted local media of exchange for all other available commodities that were not bartered. The immigrants, in fact, had little use for coined money at first; but when merchandise arrived from Europe, coins were usually demanded in payment for goods.
Nearly all foreign coins were accepted for purchases. The most popular were French louis, English guineas, German thalers, Dutch ducats, and various Spanish coins, including gold doubloons and, particularly, the Spanish milled dollar, or piece of eight. The piece of eight continued to be a standard money unit throughout the entire colonial period. Even after the Revolutionary War ended (in 1783) and the United States Mint was established (in 1792), the Spanish dollar and its fractional parts circulated in this country with official sanction until 1857. One real equaled 12-1/2 cents and was known as a bit. A quarter of the dollar thus became known as two bits, a term that is still understood to mean 25 cents.
Because of the shortage of small change, large coins were sometimes cut into smaller pieces for convenience. Spanish-American milled dollars were often chopped into halves, quarters, or eighths. Fraudulent cutting into five or six “quarters” caused many to distrust these cut pieces.
Early Americans cut Spanish-American silver coins into pieces to make small change.
England consistently ignored the plight of its American colonists and made no effort to provide gold or silver coins, or small change in any form, for their convenience. The English mercantile system relied on exports from the colonies, and sought to control trade by limiting the amount of “hard” money paid to them. Under these constraints, the colonists were able to trade for most necessities only with England, and were left with very little coinage for trade with other countries. The foreign coins that were sometimes available were a valuable commodity for purchases outside the normal English trade.
As a remedy for the dearth of circulating coinage, a wide assortment of foreign coins and tokens was pressed into use. Only a very few were made in America prior to 1783. Copper coins known as Hogge Money (from their design; see page 38) were privately made for the Sommer Islands, now known as Bermuda, about the year 1616. The first coins minted for the colonies in America were made by John Hull in Boston for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The General Court of the colony granted him authority to begin coinage, despite the possibility of objection and recrimination by the king of England. Starting in 1652 the Massachusetts minter began producing the famous NE, Willow, Oak, and Pine Tree shillings, with their fractional parts, for the convenience of the colonists. This venture, which defied English law and lasted from 1652 to 1682, was in a sense the first declaration of independence for the colonies.
As time passed, coins and tokens of many types were introduced and employed by the colonists to supplement their use of barter. Lord Baltimore was responsible for a small issue of silver pieces struck in England in 1659 and sent to Maryland for use there. Mark Newby imported from Ireland coins known as St. Patrick’s halfpence, for use in the province of New Jersey in 1682. Coins dated 1722 to 1724, known as Rosa Americana issues, were produced by William Wood in England and were widely circulated in America. In addition, many British and other European coppers circulated there.
Enterprising Americans were responsible for some of the other copper and brass pieces that circulated during the 18th century. The Gloucester token, about which little is known, was one of these. Samuel and John Higley of Granby, Connecticut, made an interesting series of threepence pieces during the period from 1737 to 1739. John Chalmers, a silversmith in Annapolis, Maryland, issued silver shillings, sixpence, and threepence pieces in 1783. In 1786 and 1787 Ephraim Brasher, a New York goldsmith, struck gold coins of the value of a doubloon (about $15 in New York currency). Standish Barry of Baltimore, Maryland, made a curious silver threepence token in 1790.
Still other tokens, struck in Britain, reached our shores in early times and were for the most part speculative ventures. These much-needed, small-denomination coppers were readily circulated because of the great scarcity of fractional coins. Included in this category were the Nova Constellatio coppers and various English merchants’ tokens.
During the period of turmoil following America’s War of Independence, from about 1781 to 1795, still more English- and American-made copper pieces were added to the great variety of coins and tokens employed in the new nation. It was a time when Americans were suffering from postwar economic depression, a shortage of currency, high taxes, and foreclosures from bankruptcies. In the 1780s the Nova Eborac pieces
