Bust Half Disme (1792)

The Coinage Act of 1792 and a Denomination Created by Arithmetic

The Constitution gave Congress the exclusive right to coin money, settling a question that had produced chaotic results under the Articles of Confederation. The conceptual architecture of the new monetary system had been assembled in stages across the preceding decade. A congressional resolution of July 6, 1785 adopted the dollar as the standard monetary unit. Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin had all advocated for a base-ten structure, Jefferson arguing simply that "the most easy ratio of multiplication and division is that of ten." The coinage would be decimal, and its smaller units would be fractions of the dollar expressed in tenths.

The word "disme" carries that logic in its etymology. Simon Stevin van Brugghe published the decimal system in a 1585 Flemish pamphlet later translated into French as La Disme. An English translation in 1608 introduced the concept of tenths to Britain and from there to American usage. A unit equal to one-tenth of a dollar was logically a disme; half of that, a half disme. The spelling survived on the 1792 coins while the pronunciation drifted from the French-derived "deem" toward "dime," and the s eventually dropped from the standard spelling. The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792, signed by Washington, established the Philadelphia Mint, named David Rittenhouse as its first Director, and defined the full denomination structure from the gold eagle through the copper half cent. The Act also settled the portrait question: Washington had dismissed the idea of placing a living president's likeness on coins as monarchical, and the law required instead "a device emblematic of liberty." That requirement held for 117 years until the Lincoln cent broke it in 1909.¹

Jefferson's Silver and Harper's Cellar

The Mint's buildings were under construction throughout the spring and summer of 1792, and its coining machinery had been ordered from England but not yet arrived. Washington was impatient. Demonstrating the capacity to produce silver coinage was an act of national sovereignty with real diplomatic meaning, and the republic's credibility depended partly on being seen to function as a monetary authority. On July 9, Rittenhouse sought Washington's approval to proceed with half disme coinage using the equipment then available. Washington authorized it. Henry Voigt, the skilled clockmaker appointed Acting Chief Coiner, arranged with John Harper, a Philadelphia sawmaker at Sixth and Cherry Streets, to use the coin press in Harper's cellar. Adam Eckfeldt, also hired for Mint work, was involved in the operation.²

On July 11, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson visited Rittenhouse at the Mint offices and deposited seventy-five dollars in silver, most likely Mexican silver dollars, the standard large-denomination specie then circulating in American commerce. The striking began. Two days later, on July 13, Jefferson recorded in his household account book: "Rec'd from the mint 1500. half dismes of the new coinage." He left Philadelphia that afternoon for Monticello, and his account book records numerous payments of five cents and multiples throughout the journey through Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The denomination, which appears in almost no other context in his accounts before or after that trip, tracks directly along his homeward route.³

Jefferson Spent Them as Money

Research by Pete Smith, Joel Orosz, and Leonard Augsburger, published in their 2017 monograph 1792: Birth of a Nation's Coinage, settled through Jefferson's memorandum books and die study evidence what had been disputed for two centuries. Jefferson's July 13 payment to "servants" at a Chester, Pennsylvania inn, thirty cents in new coin, represents the first documented commercial transaction of a United States coin struck under constitutional authority. The individuals who received that payment were in all likelihood African American, a detail that has gone generally unremarked in the popular literature on the half disme's history.⁴ Jefferson spent down his 1,500 coins through the early autumn. He did not distribute them as diplomatic gifts or political tokens. He spent them because they were money.

The Washington Legends, Examined and Dispelled

For most of the nineteenth century the half disme's history was told differently. Mint Director James Ross Snowden, writing in the 1850s, recorded a tradition then circulating at the Mint: that the Liberty portrait on the obverse was Martha Washington, who had sat for the artist; and that the silver itself came from the Washington household's table service. These stories were plausible given Washington's involvement in establishing the Mint and his evident enthusiasm for demonstrating American monetary capability. They were also irresistible. Painter John Ward Dunsmore immortalized the silverware story in a 1914 canvas depicting Washington and the First Lady inspecting the first coins alongside Hamilton, Jefferson, and Mint officials. That painting hangs at the Philadelphia Mint today.

Jefferson's account books tell a different story on every disputed point. It was Jefferson, not Washington, who provided the silver and who received and spent the coins. The silver came from Mexican dollars, not the Washington table service. No contemporary source connects the Liberty portrait to Martha Washington, and specialists who have compared the obverse to authenticated portraits of the First Lady find the resemblance unconvincing. The Dunsmore painting is displayed without correction. The scholarship displaced the narrative it depicts decades ago.⁵

The Design: LIB. PAR. OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY

The dies are most recently attributed to William Russell Birch, a British-born medalist and engraver who had recently arrived in Philadelphia and would later become known for his Views of Philadelphia series. Jacob Bay, a Germantown printer, supplied the letter punches for the inscriptions. The attribution to Birch is the current specialist consensus based on die study, though the question of exactly who prepared which elements has been debated for more than a century and should not be treated as fully settled.⁶

The obverse shows Liberty facing left with the date 1792 below. The peripheral inscription reads LIB. PAR. OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY, a condensed form of "Liberty, Parent of Science and Industry," a phrase attributed to Franklin that appears in more complete form on other 1792 experimental pieces. The reverse carries a small eagle with wings spread in flight, facing right, with UNI. STATES OF AMERICA above and HALF DISME below. A five-pointed star sits in the exergue. The coin is 16.5 millimeters in diameter, struck in approximately 89 percent silver and 11 percent copper.

Even fully uncirculated examples do not show complete design sharpness. The eagle's breast and leg feathers and Liberty's hair curls fail to come up fully on the finest known pieces. This is a characteristic of the original striking rather than wear, arising from the hand-operated press, progressive die cracking during production, and the inherent limitations of the cellar operation. Adjustment marks, file marks made to bring overweight planchets to the correct weight before striking, are common and should not be penalized in grading. A single example struck in copper is known, believed to be a die trial made before the silver production run.⁷

A Second Striking and the Total Production

Die studies have supported the possibility of a second striking of approximately 500 additional coins at the Mint itself in early October 1792, after the new coining press arrived from England. Examples from this second striking can be identified by rough raised patches on the reverse, attributed to rust or spalling of the dies during the summer between sessions. The combined production of both strikings is estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces, though some researchers place the total as high as 3,500. Jefferson's account of receiving 1,500 on July 13 is the only firm contemporary record of a specific quantity.⁸

A Production Run Cannot Be a Pattern for Itself

The half disme occupies an unusual classification in numismatic reference. Judd's pattern coin reference catalogues it as Judd-7, grouping it with the experimental pieces of 1792. The arguments for circulation status are more compelling. A production of 1,500 or more pieces exceeds by an order of magnitude what any genuine pattern issue of the era produced; patterns were typically struck in dozens or fewer. Jefferson immediately spent the coins in ordinary commerce. Washington himself, in his Fourth Annual Address to Congress on November 6, 1792, described the striking as "a small beginning in the coinage of half dismes," language that implies regular production rather than experimental trial. And the existence of the unique copper die trial argues that the silver coins were the production run that trial tested, not themselves a trial. A production run cannot simultaneously be a pattern for itself.⁹

What Survives and What It Costs

Approximately 250 to 400 half dismes are believed to survive. The American Numismatic Association museum, which holds two examples, estimates 250 to 300. Most known examples show significant circulation wear consistent with having spent extended periods in ordinary commerce, exactly as Jefferson's account book documents. About twenty are considered uncirculated by the major grading services, though even these show the characteristic incomplete striking of the original production.

The coin's status as the first piece struck under the authority of the United States Constitution places it in a category of historical significance that transcends numismatic rarity, and prices reflect that significance. Examples in worn circulated grades sell in the range of $25,000 and above. An About Uncirculated 55 example realized $138,000 in July 2004. The Starr collection coin, graded Specimen 67 by PCGS, sold for $1,322,500 at Heritage Auctions in April 2006; the same coin appeared again at Heritage's January 2013 FUN auction and realized $1,410,000. The Rittenhouse half disme, graded Mint State 68 by PCGS and formerly owned by Mint Director David Rittenhouse himself, was sold by private treaty in 2018 for $1,985,000, a record for any United States half dime.¹⁰ Cast counterfeits are known and identifiable by being heavier than the authorized weight and by having a vertical rather than plain edge. Authentication by PCGS or NGC is required before purchase.

Flowing Hair in 1794, Decimal Framework Ever After

No half dimes were struck in 1793, as the Mint's energies went entirely into the large copper cents and half cents authorized as its first regular coinage. In 1794 the Mint began regular half dime production in the Flowing Hair design by Robert Scot, establishing the denomination on a continuing basis. The five-cent silver piece circulated until 1873, when it was eliminated in favor of the base-metal Shield nickel. The decimal monetary framework that the half disme embodied in miniature silver has governed American currency ever since.