85 articles · newest first · page 2 of 8
Christian Gobrecht introduced his Coronet Liberty Head design on the eagle in 1838, adapted it to the half eagle in 1839, and completed the gold series when the quarter eagle adopted it in 1840. The…
When Henry William DeSaussure became Mint Director in July 1795, one of his declared goals was raising the artistic quality of the coinage. He engaged portraitist Gilbert Stuart to prepare a new…
Public Law 115-197, the Innovation $1 Coin Act, was signed July 20, 2018, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to mint dollar coins honoring significant innovations and pioneering efforts from…
The Mint Act of April 2, 1792 authorized a gold coinage, but the federal government lacked the capital to begin operations promptly, and silver took precedence when production finally commenced in…
Joseph Wright prepared the Liberty Cap cent dies in the summer of 1793 and died of yellow fever around September 12 or 13. The 11,056 pieces of the 1793 Liberty Cap cent were delivered to the Mint…
The Draped Bust large cent arrived in November 1796 as part of a deliberate effort to bring visual consistency across American coinage. The Mint had been running different portraits on different…
When Mint Director Robert Patterson finally hired John Reich in March 1807, he was bringing in a talent the institution had missed for years. Reich, born in Fuerth, Bavaria, had arrived in America…
The Bland-Allison Act of February 28, 1878, passed over President Hayes's veto, required the Treasury to purchase between two and four million dollars' worth of silver per month and coin it into…
The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792 authorized three gold denominations: the eagle ($10), the half eagle ($5), and the quarter eagle ($2.50). Half eagles and eagles entered production in 1795; the…
By 1840 the Philadelphia Mint still held substantial stocks of Classic Head half cents struck in the 1830s and had no pressing reason to produce more coins for commerce. The denomination had not…
In December 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his Treasury Secretary: "I think our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness. Would it be possible... to employ a man like…
Mint officials in 1915 were operating under a misapprehension. They believed the Mint Act of 1890 required them to change coin designs at the 25-year mark; in fact the statute only authorized them to…