 The Festival of Coins is brought to you in partnership with the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation and the Royal Mint Museum. Okay, so welcome to this special session from the Festival of Coins. Thanks for joining us this afternoon. We're here today with David Lang from NGC. NGC are one of the festival partners, so we're delighted to be working with them across the festival. And today we're going to learn about David's career, about his great knowledge and expertise in coins and in certifying coins. Just to give you a bit of an introduction to David, he's been the coin enthusiast for more than 50 years, is the author of 10 books on US numismatics and has received numerous awards and accolades for that writing. His latest book is a history of Whitman Publishing Company's Coin Supply Division and a catalog of its lines of follows and albums. And also in 2017 he was named Numismatist of the Year. So we're really looking forward to hearing from you today David. So I'll pass over to you now and the floor is yours. Thank you Matthew. Today I'm not going to be talking about specifically grading. I want to talk about something that relates to my own collecting. I've been a collector of both United Kingdom and United States coins for many, many years now. And I've specialized in the areas where the two coinages overlap, which is the period roughly the 1770s up through the commencement of decimal coinage in 1971 in the UK. That's where my interest sort of peters off. So we have about 200 years worth of coinage in which there are some similarities and some differences. Some of these are obvious and some are perhaps something that you may have not noticed if you're not familiar with both coinages. And so we'll be looking at some very nice coins. Both countries will be represented and I'll be speaking about some of the areas in which they're similar and some of the ways in which they're different. Now if we go back to the period when the American Revolution occurred, Americans declared their independence in 1776 from the British Empire and it took about seven years to actually make that official by treaty. So this is the period of confluence where we're using very similar coinage or at least attempting to. In the United Kingdom there was actually a very great shortage of coinage during the last three decades of the 18th century. The Royal Mint coinage was somewhat undervalued relative to its bullion value so these coins often didn't circulate. In the area of the minor coins, the copper pieces, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, the Royal Mint actually ceased producing minor coinage copper pieces, half pennies, far links pennies, right in the 1770s and 80s. And it may have been because these coins were quite quickly being melted and transformed into lighter weight counterfeits. So it is very obvious that there was a shortage of royal coinage in the United Kingdom at that time. And in the American colonies there had always been a shortage of coinage. Part of the policy of empire is to not put hard money or coin money in the colonies because it encourages them to trade with other entities besides the home empire. So in order to keep us trading exclusively with Britain, the royal policy was to limit American coinage. There are some instances in which the Royal Mint produced coinage for America. Most notably is the 1773 half penny for the colony of Virginia which was one of the royal chartered colonies. And this is a very, very rare instance in which the motherland produced coins for a colony in the North American continent. These coins did not arrive in time to avoid conflicting with America's rebellion against Britain. So most of them did not circulate. As a consequence, they are fairly common in higher grades and so we were able to have nice examples. As far as the counterpart for what was being used in the motherland, we have a 1770 half penny which was one of the last issues produced under George III until we get to the very end of the century. And so these were coins that quite often were melted by persons wishing to reproduce them as lighter weight counterfeits. And so during this period, both the United States or the American colonies that became the United States and the domestic coinage of the United Kingdom was made largely of counterfeit half pence. It was very hard to find actual genuine coins. So we have examples of a couple of counterfeits. These are dated 1775 and 1779 respectively. It's hard to say whether they were made in England or America, but most likely in the former places like Birmingham and Manchester were good for producing counterfeit half pence. And they were very crude, but they proved to be perfectly acceptable both at home and in the colonies. And so that deterred the production of genuine coins because they simply weren't circulating in favor of the counterfeits. One solution that was taken in England was to produce commercially manufactured token coins of half penny value. We have an example from Amersham, Dalton and Hamer, variety number two dated 1797. And by that point, a lot of these temporary coinages or emergency coinages were actually being sought more by collectors than for the use in daily commerce. I think this particular piece would qualify in that count. It's a really beautiful coin, but they also did produce coins that circulated widely. And a few of them made their way to America, but not too many. I think that was mostly used in the UK only. America's solution to the lack of coinage after the independence had been won in 1783 was to have the various states coin their own money. The United States government at that time was not a federal republic. It was a confederation, meaning that it was a group of states that consented to work together on certain issues, but actually maintained their independence rather strongly. And that lasted up until 1789, when the federal constitution was passed, with the greater power then going to the national government. Among the coins we have the show here, we have a Connecticut piece made in 1787. And one from Massachusetts, which interestingly enough was not a state. It was called a commonwealth, although it functions somewhat as a state. And I believe that has that status even till today. We have a 1787 piece for it. The Connecticut piece is interesting because it actually looks like a British half penny. And that facilitated circulation. Those states that produced copper coins that did not look like the ones people were familiar with often had a hard sell on them. And the Massachusetts coin is particularly interesting because it has a completely American design. It has an American Indian on one side, and a few of an eagle on the other side. And it's also unique among the early pre-federal coins in that it actually declares its value as a cent. This being acknowledgement that the United States was going to have a decimal coinage from the outset. All of the other pieces made by the states simply have no statement of value whatsoever. It was just presumed that they would circulate at the value of a half penny. And it's interesting, even though the United States did establish the dollar as its unit of value very early on, the money of account was still taken mostly in pounds, shillings, and pence for decades afterwards. So you have this bifurcated system where the coins were valued in dollars and cents, but the account books very often were kept in the old British sterling system. When we get to the late 1790s, finally, both nations have a good official coinage again. The United Kingdom was not able to come up with half pennies of its own, so it contracted with Matthew Bolton in Birmingham who had a commercial mint. It was known as the Soho Mint, and he was producing for them half pennies, pennies, and two pence pieces. In the late 1790s, we have an example from 1799 with the Soho Mint mark, and this is a half penny. And with it we have the American equivalent. The one cent piece was roughly valued the same as a half penny, give or take, but they tended to trade alongside one another in commerce, at least in America they did. And the one cent piece is 1797. It's a Sheldon 139 variety. I apologize, I don't know the variety of the Soho half penny. I've been a little remiss about updating my collection, even though I have all of the requisite books, I just haven't gotten around to doing it. And these coins are fairly comparable to one another, although the half penny being determined that it had to be a full intrinsic value weighs 12.6 grams, whereas the American cent is slightly overvalued, meaning that its value in metal is less, so it's only 10.89 grams. But they are fairly comparable, and they represent this parallel between the United Kingdom and United States coinage. Moving along a few decades, when these coin shortages were no longer an issue, no longer a topic of discussion, we look at the half penny of 1855. This is during the reign of Victoria. And again, the coins were full copper value. So this one here is a little reduced weight due to inflation from the Soho issue. It's 9.45 grams. But that's still very, very close to its actual face value. In the United States, the sense weight had not changed since 1790s. It remained at 10.89 grams. And we have an 1847, which is Nukem variety 20. And you can see that they are roughly the same size. And this is something that you see during the period in which money was valued by its intrinsic worth throughout the Western world, is that coins of comparable face value typically have similar weight and compositions. We'll see more examples of that going on. But this is true throughout Europe and North America during the greater part of the 19th century, and well into the early 20th century, until World War I upset the economies of the world. And for many nations ceased to have a standard coinage of gold and silver. Looking on a little head, Britain finally realized that the full copper farlings pennies and half pennies were simply too heavy. And they cost too much to make. They were perilously close to their face value, a situation that America faced as well. And so the decision was made to go with a lighter weight bronze coinage, rather than a full fade copper coinage. They use the French bonds alloy, which was something that France did pioneer in the 1850s. And you see there's a half penny from 1860, the first year of issue with that bronze alloy. Now in the United States, because they had had the similar situation with the coins being worth more than their face value, we took a different track here in the US, going with copper and nickel composition. We have an 1857 cent, that was the first year of production for the copper nickel cent, it's 88% copper, 12% nickel. And here the idea was to keep the face value comparable to its bullion value. So these coins are actually worth very close to their face value at that time. Whereas the bronze coinage in Britain was actually a subsidiary meaning it was worth considerably less than its face value. So a little change in direction at this point, the nations are not quite in the same attitude toward its minor coinage. But that changed very shortly. The United States underwent its own civil war, as Britain had 200 years earlier, from 1861 to 1865. And this wreaked economic havoc, primarily because both the northern states and the southern states produced paper currency that was not redeemable, at least not immediately. And that was eventually lost its value to a great extent, particularly in the south. And so people started hoarding coins, even the minor coins of bronze were and copper nickel were being hoarded. So the US Mint in 1864 eliminated the copper nickel composition, which was being widely hoarded for its metal value, and replaced it with a bronze coinage, very similar to Britain's coinage. However, the United States one cent piece, and we have an example here dated 1864, the first year of issue, it is actually quite overvalued, meaning that its face value of one cent was multiples of its actual intrinsic value. So it's no longer comparable to the British half penny in terms of value as the half pennies, though it was worth less than a half penny in metal, was still worth a greater percentage of its face value than the American component. And we see as an example of something that's a little more comparable to the American scent, we have an 1860 farthing. They're very similar weights, the scent is 3.11 grams, the farthing is 4.72 grams. So even though they have divergent values in circulation, they have similar metallic values. And because this farthing was worth closer to its face value, that somewhat doomed the coin, a century later it had to be discontinued because it was simply too expensive to produce. So there are no farthings after 1856. Our United States scent should have followed the same path in 1982 when it became impossible to continue coining it in the bronze composition that had been used for a century. Instead, the United States Congress opted to change the composition to brass plated zinc, which as any numismatists will tell you was not a good idea. And indeed, it's proved to be somewhat disastrous. 40 years later was still making these coins, but they're almost one used coinage because the coins corrode very readily and are even hard to preserve as a collectible. So more than likely we should have just discontinued it all together, but somehow its soldier's on. I want to look also at some of the silver coinage. Here again we have some parallels. The 1816 sixpence is the first year of the British new coinage after the many years of Britain's coinage being undervalued that is worth more as bullion than as its face value. A general reform occurred starting 1816 and all of the silver coinage was made subsidiary, meaning that it was intentionally worth less as metal than its face value to guarantee that it would continue circulating. And so in 1816 1817 you have a new series of both silver and gold coins which are designed to remain in circulation and in that respect they were quite successful throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century Britain had a very successful coinage that was not subject to hoarding, was not subject to melting and counterfeiting to any degree like it was in the 18th century. The closest equivalent of the sixpence is the United States dime or 10 cent piece. In fact these coins are quite similar in value or rather in weight I mean 2.83 grams for the sixpence, 2.7 grams for the dime. However the dimes fineness is a little bit lower. The British coins of this period of course were made to the sterling standard of 0.925 silver and the United States coins actually had a very complex standard that was bred to four decimal places but the closest equivalent is 900 fine. So the dime being slightly lower in weight and lower in fineness is not directly comparable to the sixpence however they are similar in value and they represent a similar sense of utility in commerce. This fraction of the silver crown was a very useful unit and the sixpence was perhaps among the most popular of all British coins for a great many years up until they ceased to circulate with the decimal conversion in 1971. The big brothers of these coins were the British shilling which is 12 pence. It's actually double the weight and value of the sixpence and we have no exact American equivalent for a very interesting reason. When the United States determined to use a decimal system it was up against the reality of the fact that in general circulation in America in the colonial period and in the early years of the nation there was a two reales coin produced by Spain's American colonies that predominated in circulation. It was the most common silver coin in circulation in what is now the United States and so it was deemed impractical to actually make a decimal coinage. The United Statesmen should have been making 20 cent pieces were immediately convertible with the 10 cent pieces. However they made the decision based on this two reales coinage or the two bits as it came to be known that they would go with a quarter dollar which was exactly equivalent to the two reales piece. That's a one fourth of the eight reales or Spanish crown and so we don't have this direct conversion. In this instance the 1818 quarter dollar shown is actually heavier than the 1817 shilling. The fineness varies a little bit but because the shilling is double the sixpence and the quarter dollar is not double the dime the American coin in this instance is weighing more although they're a fairly similar weight. The British coinage starting in 1816 was all struck in a nice collar so we have very consistent diameters. The coins are thicker and smaller in diameter than their American counterpart parts up until the United States adopted close collars and powered coinage in the 1830s then all of a sudden we see these coins being much more similar in size. Going on to the crown coin the five shillings piece the American equivalent or close equivalent is the silver dollar now in Europe and basically throughout the western world for the last several centuries the production and circulation of a crown sized piece was a sign of sovereignty and you see this all the European nations did it their individual components produced their own crown coins and this remained fairly constant at least through world war one when metals values were disrupted and in the United States it lasted right up until 1935. These coins are actually quite similar in weight 28.28 grams for the crown of five shillings and 26.73 grams for the United States silver dollar. The roles in circulation may have been somewhat different although they're similar in size and value. The crown was a circulating coin in the 19th century we know that because there are worn pieces however it was not a widely successful coin as just as Americans felt about silver dollars the British public did not really want to be carrying around very heavy coins so they are more popular with collectors than they were with the public at the time and the same was true of silver dollars in the United States the silver dollar was a circulating coin only in the western states and territories in most of the nation it was shunned because people just didn't want to carry around a pocket full of heavy coins however they continued in massive production for many years because they were a subsidy to America's domestic silver industry this became increasingly important in the 1870s as the price of silver fell very rapidly during that period many European nations demonetized their silver crown coins or at least made them subsidiary. The United States attempted to main obtain a bi-metallic standard by forcing the silver dollar coinage on the American public but the reality was by the time this 1880 San Francisco silver dollar was made the silver in it was worth only about 80 cents and it continued to fall for decades to the point where it got down to only about 25 cents by the early 20th century moving on to some gold coins we have a couple of pieces which are somewhat similar in size although not exactly similar in value an important point noted for coins to circulate internationally at least gold coins being close in value never works coins in the gold series are valued by their exact bullion weight in international trade so there's no direct parallel between the five pound or five sovereign piece and America's twenty dollar gold piece the double eagle but they are somewhat similar in appearance we have the five pound piece is 39.94 grams of 0.917 gold the double eagle is 33.44 grams of 0.900 gold both of these coins are not likely to have been seen much in general circulation Hollywood shows us these scenes of a cowboy stepping into a bar and slamming a double eagle twenty dollar piece on the bar and saying give me whiskey well that's just pure Hollywood he might have done that with a five dollar gold piece but he would not have been carrying twenty dollar pieces they were very heavy just as the five pound piece in in Britain the five pound piece was considered a collectible or commemorative issue marking Queen Victoria's gold and jubilee it was not intended to be a coin that circulated and indeed it really didn't the United States the double eagle was a coin that was used almost exclusively for international shipments of gold and also for backing for gold certificates the twenty dollar piece was never common in circulation it was simply too much money to be carrying around and making ordinary purchases with and that's true generally speaking of all large gold coins they're very impressive they're wonderful for collectors but they really didn't play a role in people's daily lives now we go on to another category we're not talking so much about parallels and value i want to talk a little bit about the imagery on our coins starting out with portraiture now it's very important to note that Britain being a monarchy is always going to have a very specific need to show the head of the monarch on all of the circulating coins the reverse of these coins typically portrays heraldry or in the case of many of the gold coins the image of st george slaying the dragon the united states being a federal public we do not have a monarch we do have presidents but for most of our nation's history they were not portrayed on the coinage certainly not in their lifetimes so thematically there's always going to be this very broad difference between UK and USA coinage when it comes to portraiture but we attempt to find some similarities at least in style to find an example of a British coin that matches the 1798 silver dollar shown here is very challenging and the closest I was able to come is the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II which appears during her reign she's wearing a somewhat similar hairstyle but that's really pretty much where the similarities end attempting to compare British and American coins directly in portraiture is almost impossible until you start getting into the commemorative series in some of the more recent bullion coinage events today in the last 30 40 years have had much greater flexibility but when it comes to circulating coins you're you're pretty much always going to see portraits of the monarch in Britain and representations of liberty in some female form on the United States coins as far as portraits we do find some similarity we have an example here of a half crown dated 1942 showing the portrait of King George VI and the closest thing I could find that is somewhat reminiscent of that is the United States half dollar from 1965 showing the portrait of President John F Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 it was determined almost immediately to put his portrait on a coin and indeed in the 20th century more and more presidents and other state leaders were starting to appear on United States circulating coins interestingly enough 1965 is the year that all silver was removed from the United States coinage with the exception of the half dollar which for the next five years was reduced from 90 percent silver to 40 percent silver which ultimately doomed these coins not circulating but they did circulate in their own time I recall very well as a child collecting coins in the 1960s and I had no trouble whatsoever finding all of the 40 percent silver halves in the 1960s as they came out and interestingly enough Britain had eliminated silver from its coins somewhat earlier stepping back even further the post-World War I period Britain had enormous debts mostly to the United States as its primary supplier of food and in many instances raw materials uh they addressed that situation by reducing the traditional sterling standard of 0.925 silver to the simple standard of 500 silver 500 copper and this is a very difficult ally to work with it took a little bit of practice they tweaked it a bit during the first few years starting 1920 so that the coins would not look ugly and black which debase silver tends to occur um ironically it was the Second World War which caused Britain to change its coins composition again eliminating silver entirely starting 1947 once again primarily to repay the United States war debts that's regrettable that this had to happen but as we saw from the example the United States in 1965 it became inevitable that silver was had to be removed from the silver from the circulating coinage it simply wasn't viable it most nations had eliminated it by that time one or two carried on Canada with 800 fine silver as late as 1968 but ultimately precious metal in the circulating coinage was a doomed concept it's just that Britain reached that reality a little bit sooner um going to continue with the theme with imagery I want to talk a little bit about seeded figures now obviously British coinage for many years was dominated by the figure of Britannia on the minor coins the half penny farthing and penny carried the image of Britannia for many many years right up until the onset of George the 6th coinage in 1937 when other images began to appear on some of these denominations I believe only the penny retained Britannia after that we have some nice examples of the Britannia image one of the most popular of all coins for collectors of British coins of course is the Soho Mint two pence coin this massive one chunk of copper is is a really impressive coin and not surprisingly it didn't circulate very far or wide because of its great bulk but collectors love these coins they literally weigh two ounces and were actually used for that purpose in weighing objects depending of that series weighs exactly one ounce this is probably the largest image you'll see of the seeded Britannia on any circulating coin from the UK a much smaller and more refined image appears on the four pence dated 1836 four pence and grope was officially a colonial coin I believe they were used in British Guiana but it's not impossible to imagine some of these coins circulating in the homeland as well really beautiful portrait of Britannia the United States used the image of Britannia in not in name but in imagery we saw earlier that coin of Connecticut which was an unvalued copper coin that passed at the value of a half penny a seeded figure appears on the back only because to make it more acceptable in American commerce the the mentors wanted to show familiar iconography the portrait of King George III and Britannia in the back although they're not so identified it's left to the imagination what they're depicting in America it would have been either Liberty or Columbia which is a somewhat obsolete representation of Liberty but again you see a seeded figure that's very clearly modeled on Britannia um a few years later this figure of Britannia was again adapted to a seeded figure of Liberty and this was the predominant image on the silver coinage obversus from 1837 all the way to 1891 we have a beautiful 1839 half dollar the very first image or the very first year of issue for the seeded Liberty half dollar and it shows what is clearly something based on the idea of Britannia and even mint correspondence from that period specifically makes reference to that mint director Robert Patterson did want the engraver to produce something that was reminiscent of Britannia and there it is a somewhat similar but different interpretation of that seeded Liberty figure appears on the trade dollar made it from 1873 to 1883 we have an example here from the Carson City Mint which is always fun that's one of the more interesting of the various obsolete us mints 1875 and it shows William Barber's interpretation of seeded Liberty as opposed to the christian gobrek Liberty we saw on the 1839 half dollar another parallel between UK and US coinage is seen in standing figures we have an example here of Britain's trade dollar this one made at the Bombay Mint in 1912 these series of trade dollars was this series was produced from 1895 until 1935 which is way beyond the period of the US coinage but then we didn't have an empire so it probably had much less utility for our trade dollar but these were used extensively in east Asia south east Asia in particular and it shows a beautiful standing figure of Britannia somewhat similar to what we see on some of the modern bullion coins which we will not get into because they're the decimal series but this is an especially attractive design we don't have a direct parallel in the United States coinage but something perhaps inspired by this image of Britannia standing is the half dollar of 1916 to 1947 we have a nice example here dated 1917 it shows the standing or striding figure of Liberty somewhat in similar pose but in this case she is in motion whereas the British trade dollar shows her standing again a little bit of artistic license perhaps to find a parallel here but I love the coins of both countries so I'm always looking for ways to link them thematically another amazing portrait of Britannia perhaps my favorite is on the two shilling or flooring piece of King Edward the seventh these were made 1902 to 1910 we have an example here from the first year of issue this was designed and sculpted by G.W. Dessau who was a really talented engraver and sculptor you'll see his name attached to many British coins of the Victorian and Edwardian period this is the most common issue of the series it was probably saved as a souvenir for a lot of people but generally speaking these coins are fairly scarce and expensive in high grade so we're very fortunate here to have a nice mid-state piece no direct comparison with the United States coin but something somewhat reminiscent or that would inspire comparison is the 1920 quarter dollar this is known as the standing liberty quarter dollar these were made 1916 to 1930 1920 is one of the more commonly seen dates particularly in wealth struck condition these coins tend to be problematic and poorly struck so we have a nice example here to compare against Britannia stretching the imagination a little bit further we have a 1909 San Francisco mint double eagle this $20 piece this is by Augustus St. Gauden or San Gadan if you want to be a little more accurate this was made from 1907 to 1933 we have an example here in 1909 from the San Francisco mint and it shows a striding liberty but in this instance that liberty is striding toward us so it's somewhat more similar to that two-shelling piece moving on to the theme of heraldry now this is obviously very very important in United Kingdom coinage because being a monarchy the most common theme of the reverse of the coins at least within the silver coins is the national arms or the royal arms and these have evolved somewhat over the years we have from 1817 a very nice half crown piece this is the first head of this new coinage that began in 1816 it's sometimes unflatteringly called the bullhead and indeed the portrait was rejected very quickly but it does show King George III and on the reverse we see the national arms and if you'll bear with me for a moment I'm going to do a little cheat here and take a look at the book to remind myself it's actually what we're seeing on here the royal arms show the arms of the house of Hanover because the various kings George were Hanoverians right up until William the fourth died in 1837 leaving no male heir and then of course at that point Victoria became the queen and under the law of Hanover she was not entitled to inherit the arms of entitles of the Hanover so on this 1817 piece we see the Hanoverian arms then we move on to a half crown of 1844 of Victoria all reference to Hanover has been eliminated some of the common elements you see on these coins usually there's a shield typically quartered you'll see the arms of England which is the outstretched lion the upright lion is represents Scotland and then you'll often have a harp representing Ireland now all of these specific things have particular names and heraldry but I want to speak in common language so we won't worry about what they're called in Latin but these are the individual components that represent the United Kingdom and I find it very interesting that there's no representation of whales until you get way into the 20th century I don't believe they even have any reference to whales until the decimal period which is quite interesting to me and I don't know the exact reason I'm sure there is one for that but I am not fully versed on British history try to focus more on the coins because they're more fun moving on to another coin we have a two-shellinger floren of 1885 this is the beautiful gothic floren and it has yet another interpretation of heraldry I won't get into the individual details but some of the features you'll see are the shield with the various escutcheons or images of the individual component lands typically there's a cross I believe that's the saint edwards cross I apologize if I'm incorrect but again my history isn't quite up to my numismatic knowledge always on the offers portraits of the ruling monarch and that does vary from period to period of victoria was updated a number of times because her range is so long but other features you'll see on the heraldry include the royal order of the garter sometimes you'll see the English tutor rose the superimposed red and white rose representing the united houses of York and Lancaster from the reign of henry the seventh these are things that survive into the present day and they're very much mixed and matched from one monarch to another but the central themes are always the same showing the royal arms as they're interpreted at that time the next coin that shows you had another interpretation of the arms on its reverse is the double florin or four shilling piece of 1887 this was a very short-lived coin type that was made for just a few years and too easily confused with the crown and ultimately proved unnecessary but a wonderful collectible no collector of English coins should not have it one example of the double florin and fortunately a lot of them were saved by collectors at the time unlike america which did not have a huge collector base in the victorian era britain had many coin collectors going back several centuries so there are still a lot of nice british coins whereas the united states coins prior to the middle of the 20th century are rather difficult to find in high grade the next one up i'm going to go through these very quickly we have a half crown of 1899 showing a later victorian interpretation with a spade shaped shield which is reminiscent of the old guinea gold coinage of the 18th century 1909 edward the seventh yet another interpretation a very broad shield but again with all the same key elements 1909 we saw that one 1942 george the sixth yet another interpretation again a shield but configured somewhat differently but with all the same components 1958 is the reign of elizabeth the second and uh there the image is somewhat different again you have the royal arms surrounded by the crown but you also have the royal cipher i believe it's called er elizabeth regina uh denoting the rain which you'll see sometimes in the earlier issues as well but it's far more prominent on this coin which went right up to the end of the sterling coinage in 1970 you still see that half crown and which point it became an obsolete denomination moving over the united states heraldry is not a big component in american coinage perhaps because we're a republic and not a monarchy but there are nods to heraldry or let's say there are graphic images that speak of nationhood or or unity going way back to the first officially united states coin in 1787 this is known as the fugio sent or fugio latin word meaning i fly and it's a representation to the sundial and that suggests the time flies we're more interested here though in the back of the coin the reverse because it shows 13 interlink chains representing the 13 colonies interestingly enough when the united states became a nation initially vermont did not join the union it remained an independent republic until 1791 so it's represented here as an affiliate as one of the 13 chain links but it was not actually a part of the united states when this coin was made and this predates the united states mint so this was a contract coinage made by a fellow named james jarvis who basically stiffed the u.s. government and left them holding the baggie absconded with funds but that's the story for another day getting into the first federal coins we have a 1793 cent the one cent piece showing another interlink chain in this instance of 15 chain links because there were now 15 states by the time this came out in 1793 so the union was growing and this this coinage was very unsuccessful these were made for a period of just two weeks and all examples are quite rare we're very lucky here to have an example here this is 1793 shelled in a two variety but the important thing is that it shows that thematic link of chains let's play on words that i didn't even intend but moving on to other forms of american heraldry the wreath is extremely common particularly on minor coins the lesser denominations one cent two cents three cents five cents in this instance we have a 1908 cent showing a very attractive oak wreath surmounted by the federal shield coins of this design were made 1860 to 1909 uh moving on we have a two cent piece which was made from 1864 to 73 this particular example is dated 1866 and it shows a wreath of wheat which is another characteristically american agricultural product a lot of that wheat got shipped to britain over the years perhaps still does i don't know uh another image typical of american coins representing nationhood in an indirect manner is the american eagle the bald eagle this is our national bird despite the efforts of benjamin franklin to replace it with a turkey nobody listened to him he was generally a very intelligent man but in that instance he got it wrong here we have an 1812 half dollar which shows what's known as a sandwich board eagle we call it that because it has that shield on its chest it looks like it's wearing a sandwich board advertising sign this is overton variety 109 these were made from 1807 to 1836 we also have a quarter dollar from 1920 we saw earlier just the obverse of that coin here we're interested in the reverse which shows a depiction of a soaring eagle a very attractive figure of the eagle and these were made from 1916 to 1930 uh again we have the eagle from the silver dollar we saw earlier the 1880s issue one of the most common of silver dollars even in gem condition and this shows a somewhat heraldic eagle it's not the official arms of the united states but it shows components that are typical of that the wreath and the eagle the final thing i want to talk about in terms of heraldry is representations of the great seal of the united states now true and accurate representations are very rare on united states coins and date only to the earliest period of the 1790s early 1800s a good example of this is seen on the silver dollar uh but before we get to that i want to look at an 1800 half eagle five dollar gold piece uh pre 1834 united states gold coins were overvalued and as a result nearly all of them were melted they are quite rare so it's a treat to have an example of this but here on this coin you see the reverse of it has a fairly accurate depiction of the great seal of the united states as adopted in 1782 one thing that the us meant did get wrong uh perhaps because the gravers were working in mirror image when they worked on the coins is that they transposed the arrows and the olive branch the olive branch is supposed to be held in the right claw i believe the dexter claws it's called in heraldry and the olive branch is supposed to in the dexter claw and then the arrows are supposed to be in the sinister or left claw well on the early united states coins those are transposed in all other respects however that's an accurate representation of the of the great seal we see it also again on the 1800 silver dollar a very similar image uh intended to be identical although perhaps not exactly so these coins were only made up until about 1807 when the designs changed again the great seal of united states doesn't appear in any form again on a coin until 1892 when a new series of fractional silver coins was adopted the dime border dollar and half dollar made from 1892 to 1916 show this particular image of the heraldic eagle it doesn't have all of the components of the great seal it doesn't have the clouds that are supposed to appear above the eagle oddly enough the pattern coins of 1891 did have the clouds and the engraver was directed to remove those because they were simply too cluttered on the design but this is perhaps the last accurate depiction of the great seal the united states on coinage the last piece we have is the half dollar of 1965 we saw it earlier but now we're focused on the reverse this is the commemorative for president john f kennedy a circulating commemorative and it does have what appears to be the great seal but in this instance it's actually the presidential seal it has most of the components but not all of them so you'll still see this today if the united states president is speaking this will appear behind him and these coins are still being manufactured though no longer for circulation it's just a collector issue now that is pretty much all i have to say about this matter i i hope i've opened some eyes about the similarities between british and american coins showing where they are similar and where they are different as i've said before i enjoy collecting the coins of both nations and it's very rewarding to be able to see them as they progress to develop consecutively over the last 200 and some years thank you very much thanks david that's great thank you um do we want to do any questions or i'm certainly open to that if somebody has a question um well i mean i have a few so we could we could kind of try um i just uh wondered how important you you thought coins were in the um in the kind of the push for us independence you know did coins really play an important part politically well the problem is that there were very few coins into circulation at the time of the american revolution uh so there certainly were no american manufactured coins then uh again the mercantile policy of britain was to not import coins into the united states so basically when people traveled to this country or to this the 13 american colonies they brought coins with them but there was really no uh supply being shipped in directly and the coins that we were using at that time represented many nations spain portugal france the netherlands it was a real hodgepodge all this mixed in with whatever british royal coinage found its way here so um unfortunately it would be wonderful to have a lot of coins from the american revolution but we don't we have a few speculative patterns and trial pieces but nothing that was actually produced for circulation okay and also i find it quite interesting that the influences on us coinage because it's not it would be wrong to say that britain had it the most influence on coins would you say it came from other countries as well certainly other countries were influential america because it was its its self-image was as a an entirely new concept in nation but uh it was so far as i know it was the first democracy as we understand it today and it was a federal republic so there was a conscious effort to not look too regal in the coinage that's why george washington our first president refused to have his portrait appear on the coins which had been suggested by congress so uh while our early pieces were an attempt to mimic the british coins particularly in the copper coinage to make to facilitate their circulation uh when the actual designs came there was a very strong attempt to get away from british imagery yeah okay and that also um i guess it lent the artist some element of freedom to be able to to depict different things you spoke about the portrait sharing and it's obviously um the the characteristic of british coins is the monarch that's that's what we see in all the coins so would you say there was a certain kind of freedom in the design process well there was freedom within parameters um the united states coinage states and the enabling law that it had the offers the coin has to depict an image of liberty now it's not specific whether that it's a portrait or some other component for instance the uh one cent pieces of 1857 to 1858 depict an eagle on their offers and that was interpreted as being in line with the law saying an image of liberty but typically um throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries liberty was depicted as a female figure the goddess liberty and so there are various versions of that um they tried to keep her hairstyles contemporary with the time frame of the coins each artist had a different way of viewing liberty but the basic notion of a profile view of the goddess liberty did not change much we don't see uh any really creative thrust until the early 20th century when the mint began soliciting outside sculptors rather than relying on its own in-house artists the so-called renaissance of american coinage as as writer roger paredes dubbed it went from 1907 to 1921 when all of the united states designs were completely recreated and although liberty does appear on a number of these uh the interpretation or the pose of liberty is completely different from anything seen in earlier decades yeah okay that's really interesting um one final question which might be quite hard for you to answer david is if you had to pick a favorite coin from the us from this period and the uk what would you pick which two coins would you would you well my answer for the uk is very easy okay foreign of edward the seventh with the standing liberty is an absolutely beautiful coin i i wish i had a complete run at one point i i got up to owning three pieces but the condition wasn't satisfying so i settled on the one nice piece it's a little bit harder with the united states coinage these early 20th century designs were just all magnificent i've written books on lincoln sense on buffalo nickles and mercury dimes so obviously i have an interest in that area yeah but i would have to say if i had to pick one particular coin design that is my absolute favorite it would be the standing liberty border dollar we saw that nice 1920 example and even though the mint had a devil of a time getting these coins to strike fully and most of the design features and the higher relief don't appear on the coins when you do find one that's fully struck it is just an absolutely a joy to behold so that would have to be my favorite excellent okay well thank you so much for joining us today um it's been really fascinating and um as i say the ngc are the festival partners so do check out their showcase page on the website at allaboutcoins.co.uk and you can find out a great deal about ngc there so thanks david thank you matthew don't miss the festival showcase for more support