Before the passage of the Mint Act of 1792, varied coinages circulated throughout the colonies and, later, states. Some were produced by the individual colonies and states themselves such as Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, and some were produced by foreign countries. Indeed, foreign coinages were accepted as legal tender in the United States well into the mid-1800s. In contemplating the question of whether the U.S. should even consider producing its own coins, Congress was presented with several proposals -- including a contract proposal from an established foreign minter lauding its skills at producing high quality coins at low prices. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was assigned to evaluate that proposal, and his report to Congress on April 14, 1790 was most eloquent. While recognizing that the United States would otherwise need to establish its own mint at some cost, and that the initial production from that mint may be less than perfect, Jefferson was succinct in recommending the proposal be declined, stating that "Coinage is peculiarly an attribute of sovereignty. To transfer its exercise into another country, is to submit it to another sovereign."
Jefferson was equally outspoken about his support for using the dollar as the basic monetary unit of currency for the United States. In his report to Congress he stated, "I question if a common measure of more convenient size than the dollar could be proposed. The value of 100, 1,000, 10,000 dollars, is well estimated by the mind; so is that of the tenth or hundredth of a dollar." He went on to describe how confusing other monetary units had been, stating:
"Every one knows the facility of decimal arithmetic. Every one remembers that, when learning money arithmetic, he used to be puzzled with adding the farthings, taking out the fours and carrying them on; adding the pence, taking out the twelves and carrying them on; adding the shillings, taking out the twentieths and carrying them on; but when he came to the pounds, where he had only tens to carry forward, it was easy and free from error. The bulk of mankind are school-boys through life. These little perplexities are always great to them, and even mathematical heads feel relief of an easier substituted for a more difficult process.... Certainly, in all cases where we are free to choose between easy and difficult modes of operation, it is most rational to choose the easy. The financier, therefore, in his report, well proposed that our coins should be in decimal proportions to one another. If we adopt the dollar for our unit, we should strike four coins, one of gold, two of silver, and one of copper. (1) A golden piece, equal in value to ten dollars; (2) The unit, or dollar itself, of silver; (3) The tenth of a dollar, of silver also; (4) The hundredth of a dollar, of copper."
Thus said, undoubtedly, to our forefathers, the domestic production of coins, and most essential, the production of silver dollars, was seen to be of national historical importance. The coins to be produced would not just be metallic tools of commerce, but they would represent our Founding Fathers' circulating declaration to the world of the sovereignty of our great nation. Indeed the unique Specimen 1794 dollar, possibly the first struck of the nation's basic unit of currency, may be our nation's first and foremost tangible symbol of that declaration.
Read more : https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-2EQBC/1794-flowing-hair-silver-dollar-b-1-bb-1-the-only-known-dies-rarity-4-bb-die-state-i-silver-plug-specimen-66-pcgs-cac
