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Pewter. CURENCY spelling. A highly pleasing example of this popular issue with incorrectly
spelled denomination. Medium silver gray with generous amounts of brightness in the
recessed areas. Mark-free to the unaided eye, and quite glorious as such. Nicely struck
for the issue, with nearly complete facial details on the radiant obverse sun, and with
mainly complete horizontal lines in the sundial and surrounding ground. Obverse cud
connects tops of GI to outer circle. Reverse even more lustrous and impressive than the
obverse, with the names of all the states bold and with full and sharp peripheral beading
present. In the date, the 1 and 6 are essentially the same size as the letters of
CONTINENTAL CURENCY, while each 7 in the date slants dramatically right and sports a long
tail that intrudes upon the peripheral beads below. An impressive Continental
"Curency" that will easily pique your bidding interest, and certainly a specimen
that will do the same for countless other potential bidders.Die alignment: about 40º,
just past medal turn.
The 1776 Continental dollar, despite some ill-considered
questioning of its intended denomination, has all of the hallmarks of a dollar coin: an
edge that would be familiar to any 18th century American who handled money as the edge of
a Spanish 8 reales, a size that was identical only to a Spanish dollar among the hundreds
of coin types that circulated as current in pre-federal America, in addition to the
absence of this popular denomination in the late 1776 emission of paper Continental
Currency into whose scheme this coin naturally fit. When Jefferson criticized the Morris
plan of coinage in 1783, he assailed the "unit" as being like no known currency
in value - a Continental "penny" in pewter with an edge device for a large
silver coin would have endlessly confused those who were intended to spend it, as no base
metal coin was ever struck in such a size or with such an edge. Of course, as it were, the
pewter Continental dollars were hardly a hit. The Congress had so little bullion in 1776
that striking them from precious metal was an impossibility (but for a very few patterns
struck in silver), but the pewter replacement issues struck apparently made no friends in
commerce. Among issues of this period, perhaps only the lightweight and rejected Bar cent
has a higher average grade. Indeed, Continental dollars apparently circulated very little,
as most known pieces are in the EF range.
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