How To Tell If A Confederate Coin Is Real

A brief history of Confederate Coins

Coins | ANA Official Post | Jake Sherlock

By Dave Meisky

(Scroll down for images of the coins mentioned in this article)

Most people are aware of Confederate paper money but did the Confederacy mint coins? This is a hard question equally there are 2 possible answers: "Yes, but…" or "No, however…"  In 1861 in that location were five United States mints. Two of them, the principal mint in Philadelphia and the newest mint in San Francisco, were in states that remained in the Union while the mints in Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; and New Orleans were in what became the Amalgamated States. Of these three, New Orleans was the largest while the other two were smaller operations that had been established in the early 1840s to have advantage of aureate strikes in these areas.

In Jan of 1861, the Federal regime produced about 330,000 silver (actually xc percent silver and ten percent copper) half dollars at New Orleans. When Louisiana seceded the state took over the mint and continued production, turning out nearly 124,000 of the coins. They used the original die (the dice is what actually creates the image on the blank coin) so their coins still said "U.s.a. of America." The Confederate Treasury Department then took over and minted some other 963,000 United States one-half dollars. Coins of this flow contained approximately the amount of metal equal to the confront value of the coin and these Louisiana- and Amalgamated-produced coins had the aforementioned amount of silverish equally the U.Due south.-produced coins and were thus just as valuable. There is no way to make up one's mind if an individual coin was minted by the U.S., Louisiana, or the Confederacy every bit the same workers used the same die and machines and the coins had the same amount of silver.

Louisiana and the Confederacy also minted United States double eagle ($twenty) gold coins in New Orleans. The production runs for these coins was well-nigh 5,000 by the U.S., 9,750 by Louisiana, and 2991 by the Confederacy. The Southward also minted a total of approximately 10,000 Us gilded $1 and $5 coins at Charlotte and Dahlonega earlier running out of stock and closing down these ii operations.

The Amalgamated States, equally an independent nation, wanted to produce their own coins, non only re-create U.S. coins, so it was decided to mint Confederate silver one-half dollars. The first thing everyone recognized was that Miss Freedom was a southern belle, not a Yankee, so her prototype as information technology appeared on the U.S. half dollar could also appear on the Amalgamated coin, meaning that a new dice would not have to exist created. Manufacturing the die was the hardest and most technical challenging aspect of coining. A new die was created for the contrary side of the coin and four of the coins were struck and given to four individuals. The idea was that the coins would be examined and a decision fabricated as to whether product would continue with that design. The fall of New Orleans in the spring of 1862 ended Confederate control of the New Orleans mint so no more of these coins were produced.

These 4 Confederate one-half dollars take an interesting post-war history. They were out of sight for a number of years in private hands but over the class of time they reappeared in public view. The first surfaced in 1879 when the man who had initially received it, Mr. B. F. Taylor, the chief coiner of the New Orleans Mint in 1861, sold it along with the die for the contrary, Amalgamated, side of the coin. This coin in at present in the American Numismatic Clan's collection.

The adjacent, which had been given to Dr. Eastward. Adams of New Orleans, did not appear until 1910 when a collector plant it in a wrapped gyre of half dollars he received from a banking company. It is now the property of the Newman Numismatic Education Club.

The third has the virtually interesting history. Information technology was given to the mint superintendent, William Elmore, who sent it to Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger, who in plough passed information technology on to President Jefferson Davis. It was with Davis when he left Richmond on Apr 2, 1865, and was in his wife'south luggage when he was captured in George. On the gunkhole trip to Fortress Monroe, the luggage was searched and the coin was pilfered.  When it reappeared at an sale in 1938 it was being sold as a Scott restrike (more about them later), although its actuality as one of the original four was later established.

The last came to public view in 1971 after passing through several owners, starting with the 1861 New Orleans Postmaster John Riddell. The Davis and Riddell coins were both sold in split up auctions several months ago with the Davis coin commanding a high bid of $881,250 while the Riddell was a steal at $646,250.

The first of these Confederate one-half dollars was sold, along with the die, in 1879 to John W. Scott. The die was non in the best condition just Scott cleaned it upward and decided to produce some restrikes. Since he didn't have a dice for the Miss Liberty face of the money, he produced 500 tokens with the Confederate side and a message on the front that this was a restrike from an original die. This worked well, then he decided to produce 500 coins resembling the originals. Since he didn't accept the Miss Liberty dice, he obtained 500 original 1861 half dollars, shaved the backs smoothen, and then used the Confederate die to strike an image on the shaved surface.  The result was a real 1861 U.S. one-half dollar that appears to exist a Amalgamated half dollar although of slightly less weight due to the shaving of the back and with a slightly flattened Miss Liberty epitome because of pressure during the restrike. As previously mentioned, when the original Davis money appeared in 1938 it was first thought to be i of these restrikes. Mr. Scott then defaced the dice so there would be no more than restrikes, thus helping to maintain the value of his coins. The die went through several hands until some years subsequently when the listed owner stated he had donated it to the Louisiana State Historical Gild. The Society checked its holdings and could not find the die nor could it find any record that it had ever been donated. Keep your eyes open because somewhere out there in the land of auctions, flea sales, and antique stores may be the Confederate one-half dollar die.

At that place was a period of near two months from February to April of 1861 when the Amalgamated States was an established nation merely there was as even so no war. In tardily February the Confederate Treasury Department contracted with a company in Philadelphia to produce pennies (one cent coins) for the Confederacy. The job was assigned to Mr. Robert Lovett ,who designed the coin, created the die, and produced 12 samples, in nickel, to be sent to Richmond for approving. However a slight snag adult: The state of war had started and producing Confederate coins in Philly didn't seem similar the greatest of ideas to Mr. Lovett. Not wanting to go in problem with Federal authorities, he buried the twelve coins and the two dies in his basement and kept his mouth shut. The Confederate Treasury never heard from him, and given the atmospheric condition never expected to hear from him, and so assumed that aught had been produced.

Following the war Lovett did two things: He dug up and started carrying one of the coins as a good luck piece and he became somewhat of a boozer. 1 evening in 1871 he was engaged in his favorite activity and when he settled his bar tab he wasn't paying attention, or was beyond paying attention, and gave the bartender the Confederate penny. Barkeeps are notably sharp-eyed when it comes to customer payments and he spotted the unusual coin. The cat, or in this example the coin, was out of the purse and Mr. Lovett concluded up selling the twelve coins and the two dies to a collector named John Haseltine.

Haseltine sold the 12 coins (one of them fetched $141,000 at a recient auction) and decided to produce a limited number of restrikes in various metals. The originals were made of nickel, and then he produced 7 coins in gold, 12 in silverish, and 55 in copper. He then defaced both dies. These defaced dies were obtained some years later by Robert Bashlow, who in 1961 did restrikes with the damaged dice: ii,500 in silver, five,000 in goldine, and x,000 copper. The dies were and so donated to the Smithsonian Institute.

This brings us back to the original question: Did the Confederacy mint coins? YES, Simply they were all U.South. coins except for four half-dollar coins plus 12 one-cent coins someone else minted that the Amalgamated government never really owned. NO, Nevertheless there are a very limited number of samples that were minted by, or for, the Confederacy in improver to a number of non-Amalgamated coins that they produced. If you lot go to the souvenir shop at any battleground or historical site you will probably be able to buy reproductions of the penny and one-half dollar and perhaps some reproductions of Confederate coins that never existed such equally $5 and $xx imaginary aureate coins. The pennies and half dollars are sometimes labeled "restrikes" but they are not. A restrike is made with the original die while these are reproductions. There was discussion during the war most producing Confederate gold coins but no pattern or samples were ever created.

An interesting side note is that although the image of Robert Eastward. Lee never appeared on whatsoever Amalgamated bill or coin it has appeared on at to the lowest degree ii United States coins: the 1925 Stone Mountain commemorative one-half dollar and the 1937 Boxing of Antietam half dollar. Too on the Stone Mountain one-half dollar next to Lee is Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall also appears on a Confederate $500 bill, making him one of three people whose image has appeared on both Confederate and U.S. money. The other two are Andrew Jackson and George Washington.

Source: https://www.money.org/blog/ConfederateCoinsMeisky

Share this post