The more I learn about the early copper coinage of the United States and the operations of the U.S. mint at Philadelphia in its infancy, the more I am drawn to this area of coin collecting. And not just the Large Cents and Half Cents that we’re all familiar with. Pre-federal coinage and the chaos that ensued from general contractors petitioning individual “states” to secure minting privileges seems to me even more fascinating.
There are many remarkable connections between the personnel responsible for some pre-federal coin series’ and the young Philadelphia mint. Damon Douglas in his book “The Copper Coinage of the State of New Jersey” presents evidence that the mint not only employed laborers that had worked in these pre-federal mints but on one occasion a die engraver was hired as an assistant who had earlier provided die work for New Jersey and Connecticut state coinage.
Then there is the interesting Mr. Walter Mould. He, along with a couple of other equally interesting gentlemen, was the founder of the mint that produced most of the New Jersey coppers, the popular “Nova Caesarea” coins depicting a horse’s head and plow on the obverse and a shield on the reverse of 1786-1788. There is the very real possibility that Mould was convicted of counterfeiting in England in 1776, obviously prior to immigrating to what would become the U.S.
Throw in a failed brewer (Samuel Atlee) and some other colorful characters for which their chronic inability to pay their debts is extensively documented in the newspapers of the day, and you have the originators of our early circulating coinage.
