Connecting Numismatics with America’s 250th Anniversary

1. How did a British colony using pounds, shillings, and pence for coinage end up using decimal coinage? Thomas Jefferson was the main proponent of a decimal dollar in the 1780s.
2. The U.S. government, under the Articles of Confederation and then under the U.S. Constitution, prohibited the issue of paper until the Civil War because of the terrible inflationary experience with Continental Currency (“Not worth a Continental”).
3. When he served as President Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase oversaw the first issues of U.S. government paper money, but later voted that such actions were unconstitutional when he was serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.
4. The proposed first coins to be issued by the U.S. government bore the bust of George Washington on the obverse, but Washington refused the idea as it was reminiscent of monarchs putting their portraits on coins.
5. The printing company of Hall and Sellers that printed all issues of Continental Currency was the business originally founded by Benjamin Franklin. David Hall went to work for Franklin and, when he bought out Franklin, took on William Sellers as a new partner.
6. The Willow Tree, Pine Tree, and most Oak Tree issues were dated 1652 to attempt to skirt around laws against counterfeiting the English king’s coinage. There was no English king on the throne from 1649 to 1660 during the Cromwell Protectorate.
7. The issue of private gold coins from the 1830s into the 1860s, including why they began and why they ended.
8. The issue of the 1920 and 1921 Pilgrim Tercentenary Half Dollar, depicting Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, who was a direct ancestor of the founder of our company, Liberty Coin Service.
9. R. E. Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile and a local resident, has his signature on U.S. National Currency issued by the local bank that he founded.
10. The weight of the U.S. Silver Dollar was determined by taking an average weight of the Spanish 8 Reales (Pieces of Eight) then circulating in the colonies and early independent America.
11. Identify the required elements on U.S. coinage, including Liberty, United States of America, E Pluribus Unum, and In God We Trust. Why are they used?
12. Describe the history of how In God We Trust came to be added to U.S. coins and currency.
13. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the son of a former Virginia slave, was born a free man and became the first president of the newly independent Republic of Liberia, a nation that has issued coins bearing his image (note: I lived in Liberia as a child when my father was in the U.S. foreign aid program)
14. Where did the symbol of “$” come from? There is no consensus on this issue.
15. The first coin to depict a map of the state of Michigan was the 1936 Cleveland Great Lakes Half Dollar.
16. Why were steel cents issued in 1943?
17. Identify the living people who have been depicted on U.S. coins.
18. The first male and first actual female depicted on U.S. coins (Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella) never heard of the United States of America.
19. Which U.S. president is depicted on both sides of the same U.S. currency? Thomas Jefferson on $2.00 Federal Reserve Notes 1976 to date.
20. Why were no Series 1934 $100,000 Gold Certificates released into circulation? Were only issued to be used for gold transactions between Federal Reserve Banks.

Last column’s numismatic trivia question.

This week’s trivia question