1776 Continental Dollar (Pewter)

Franklin's sundial in metal

When the Continental Congress began paying for the Revolution with paper money, its small-change notes carried a picture Benjamin Franklin is credited with: a sundial under a blazing sun, the Latin word FUGIO ('I fly') and the motto MIND YOUR BUSINESS, a reminder that time flies and work should be tended. The other side showed thirteen linked rings, each with a colony's name, around the words AMERICAN CONGRESS and WE ARE ONE.

The same designs appear on a large, undenominated piece of pewter dated 1776 and inscribed CONTINENTAL CURRENCY, sometimes misspelled. No law or resolution authorizing it has ever been found. In a 1952 monograph, numismatist Eric P. Newman noticed that the one-dollar bill appeared in every paper issue Congress authorized from May 1775 to May 1776 but was left out of every issue from July 1776 through September 1778. He argued that the gap was made for a metal dollar, and that these pieces were it.

Under that theory the coins had almost no metal value and, like the paper they replaced, depended on public trust in Congress. Silver strikings of full weight suggest a precious-metal coinage was considered and dropped for lack of silver. Brass pieces are usually explained as die trials. Pewter examples turn up often enough to suggest a large production, and Franklin himself remarked that pewter was badly needed for soldiers' canteens, so many may have been melted. One estimate puts the original output at about 6,000 pieces, probably struck in New York.

Who was E.G.?

One obverse die is signed EG FECIT, 'E.G. made it,' below the sundial. That die, Newman's obverse 3, has the correct spelling CURRENCY. The coin in this entry was struck from a different die, the CURENCY obverse with one R, and does not carry the signature. Who E.G. was has been debated for more than a century. A 1909 writer suggested an Ephraim Getz, who does not seem to have existed. In 1952 Newman floated Elbridge Gerry, a member of Congress.

By 1959 Newman had settled on Elisha Gallaudet, a New York City engraver born around 1728 to 1730. Gallaudet made parts of the plates for New York's paper money of 1771 and the tooling for New York City's 'Water Works' notes of 1774 to 1776, and he engraved silver award medals for the literary society at King's College. He moved his family to Freehold, New Jersey, possibly fleeing the British occupation of New York, and died there in 1779. Sale catalogs and many references still credit him with the dies.

Researchers Erik Goldstein and David McCarthy point out that Gallaudet's name appears nowhere in the more than 14,000 pages of the Continental Congress's records, even though those records list payments to the people who made the paper, the border cuts and the printing of the notes.

Coin or souvenir: the 2018 challenge

In January 2018 Goldstein and McCarthy published 'The Myth of the Continental Dollar' in The Numismatist. They went back to people who were collecting at the time. The Philadelphia collector Pierre Eugene du Simitière kept a list of the 137 coins, medals and notes he acquired between August 1775 and December 1783. It includes no Continental dollar. His notes for a planned illustrated history describe 'a coin of the Size of a Crown, with devices and Mottos taken from the continental money, Struck't in London on Type-Metal, and dated 1776.'

In London, collector Sarah Sophia Banks recorded hers in a pre-1790 ledger as a 'Congress Dollar. 1776, never current, struck on speculation in Europe, for sale in America.' She also kept a printed flyer advertising 'These American MEDALS' at sixpence each, or four shillings and sixpence 'in that country.' The authors concluded that the pieces were inexpensive commemorative medals made in Europe around 1783, after the war.

The traditional view has its own early evidence. A Loyalist poem printed in New York in November 1779 mocks 'pewter dollars, what both hands can hold.' A German almanac published in 1783 illustrated one as an American issue, and the chemist Richard Watson described them in 1786 as coins struck by Congress. The question is not settled. The American Numismatic Association's museum now notes that the piece may be a British-made souvenir, and one major auction firm catalogs the coins as '1776' (1783). Others still describe them as a substitute for paper dollars struck in 1776.

Reading a Newman 1-C

Newman sorted the pieces by their dies. Most obverses differ in how CURRENCY is spelled: CURENCY, CURRENCY, or CURRENCEY, a blunder that was later altered with an ornament. All three CURENCY varieties, Newman 1-A, 1-B and 1-C, share one obverse die and one reverse die. The reverse was reworked twice. On reverse A, small dots surround the colonies' names. On B, solid lines were cut through the dots. On C, the die was lapped, the dots almost disappeared, and thicker solid lines form the chain.

Newman 1-A is known from a single pewter example, discovered in late 2014. Newman 1-B is known from about seven pewter pieces. Newman 1-C, the variety in this entry, is the one usually seen, with perhaps a few hundred or more known. It is one of three Continental dollar varieties that together turn up more often than all the others combined.

The coin behind this entry shows the obverse die in an intermediate state, with a heavy crack joining the tops of the G and I in FUGIO and a sharply doubled serif on the G. In later states that crack grows into a full cud over GI. It weighs 263.1 grains and tested at 91% tin, 4% lead and 3% antimony. Its die alignment is 10 degrees. Its catalog describes pale champagne toning, bold details and a few dark toning spots.

Sales and record prices

This coin was in the collection of Ted L. Craige in 1971 and later in the collection of Donald Groves Partrick. It was offered in January 2015 at a Florida auction where three rare Continental dollars from the same consignment set prices together. The unique Newman 1-A, its rim damaged, brought $117,500. Partrick's NGC MS64 Newman 1-B, the finest certified of its variety, brought $199,750. This NGC MS65 Newman 1-C with a CAC sticker brought $246,750, which a major grading service lists as the auction record for the CURENCY pewter type. At the time NGC had certified 32 Mint State examples of the variety, two of them MS65 and one MS66, and the cataloger had never before offered a Gem.

The highest prices belong to other varieties. The finest certified Continental dollar of any kind, an NGC MS67 EG FECIT pewter piece once owned by Virgil Brand, F.C.C. Boyd and John J. Ford Jr., sold for $546,250 in January 2012 and for $456,000 in June 2021. In 2014 a silver EG FECIT example, one of about four known in silver, sold for $1,410,000.

Ordinary circulated Newman 1-C pieces have traded in five figures. Recent results include $36,600 for a VF35 and $85,400 for an MS62 in September 2026.

A design that outlived the argument

Whatever its origin, the Continental dollar's imagery stuck. The 1787 Fugio cent, the first coin officially circulated by the United States, borrowed much of its design. In 2006 an adaptation appeared on the reverse of the 'Founding Father' Benjamin Franklin commemorative silver dollar, and replicas are sold at historic sites across the country.

For collectors the piece remains the signature relic of the Revolution in metal. Goldstein and McCarthy themselves call it America's favorite colonial coin. If they are right, it is a souvenir of independence made for buyers who wanted one. If Newman was right, it is the first dollar the United States tried to issue.

The numbers

Mintage

Unknown; no record survives. One estimate is about 6,000

Known survivors

Estimates differ: about 100 in pewter (one reference), about 60 of all metals (a 2014 account), perhaps a few hundred or more of Newman 1-C alone (a grading-service reference)

Weight (this coin)

263.1 grains (about 17 grams); the finest EG FECIT example weighs 268.1 grains

Diameter

About an inch and a half, as described in 1786; no modern measurement was verified

Composition (this coin)

91% tin, 4% lead, 3% antimony

Designer

Devices after Benjamin Franklin's Continental Currency designs; dies attributed by Newman to Elisha Gallaudet (disputed)

Varieties

Five obverse dies and two physical reverse dies (Newman's A, B and C are one reworked die)

References

Newman 1-C, Breen-1089, Hodder 1-A.3, W-8445; rarity 3

Timeline

1. Feb 1776

   Congress issues fractional notes carrying the sundial and linked-rings designs later used on the dollar.

2. Jul 22, 1776

   A new paper issue omits the one-dollar denomination, the gap Newman tied to a metal dollar.

3. 1779

   Engraver Elisha Gallaudet dies in Freehold, New Jersey.

4. Nov 6, 1779

   A Loyalist poem printed in New York mocks 'pewter dollars, what both hands can hold.'

5. 1783

   A German almanac publishes the earliest known illustration of a Continental dollar.

6. Dec 1783

   Collector Pierre Eugene du Simitière's list of acquisitions since 1775 still includes no Continental dollar.

7. 1786

   Richard Watson describes the pieces in his Chemical Essays as coins of Congress.

8. 1787

   The Fugio cent reuses much of the design.

9. 1909

   A writer suggests EG stands for 'Ephraim Getz,' who does not appear to have existed.

10. Jul 25, 1949

    Eric P. Newman, doubting the pieces, returns a brass example offered to him for $145.

11. 1952

    Newman publishes The 1776 Continental Currency Coinage, arguing the pieces replaced paper dollars.

12. 1959

    Newman identifies New York engraver Elisha Gallaudet as the likely E.G.

13. 1971

    The coin behind this entry is recorded in the collection of Ted L. Craige.

14. 2006

    An adaptation of the design appears on the Benjamin Franklin 'Founding Father' commemorative dollar.

15. Jan 2012

    The finest certified Continental dollar, an NGC MS67 EG FECIT, sells for $546,250.

16. 2014

    A silver EG FECIT Continental dollar sells for $1,410,000.

17. Jan 2015

    The coin behind this entry, NGC MS65 CAC, sells for $246,750.

18. Jan 2018

    Goldstein and McCarthy publish 'The Myth of the Continental Dollar,' arguing for a European souvenir of about 1783.

19. Jun 17, 2021

    The NGC MS67 EG FECIT example sells again, for $456,000.

The world in 1776

• Jul 2, 1776

  The Second Continental Congress passes the Lee Resolution declaring separation from Great Britain.

• Jul 9, 1776

  A crowd in New York topples the statue of George III at Bowling Green; much of its metal is made into musket balls.

• Aug 2, 1776

  A parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence is signed by members of Congress.

• Sep 9, 1776

  Congress renames the United Colonies the United States.

• Sep 15, 1776

  British forces land at Kip's Bay on Manhattan.

• Sep 22, 1776

  Nathan Hale is executed by the British in New York City.

• Dec 19, 1776

  Thomas Paine publishes the first American Crisis essay.

• Dec 26, 1776

  Washington's army surprises Hessian troops at the Battle of Trenton.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1776 Continental Dollar (Pewter) is number 55 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (24 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• No record of the Continental Congress mentions the Continental dollar, even though the same records list payments for every part of making the paper notes.
• A London collector's flyer advertised 'These American MEDALS' at sixpence each.
• The coin carries no denomination; 'dollar' is a name collectors gave it.
• In 1949 Eric Newman, unconvinced, sent back a brass Continental dollar a dealer had offered him for $145. Three years later he published the theory that made the pieces America's first dollar.
• The metal of the coin behind this entry is mostly tin: 91%, with lead and antimony.
• One CURENCY variety, Newman 1-A, is known from a single example that was discovered only in late 2014.
• Franklin's sundial and FUGIO motto reappeared on the 1787 Fugio cent.