News of Independence Prompts America's First Coin

TIBURON, Calif., June 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The first consciously sovereign act of the newly-independent United States was to strike a coin, according to an article published in the July 1^st issue of The Numismatist, the official magazine of The American Numismatic Association.

"I was blown away when I found the payment in Robert Morris's diary – I couldn't believe that the entry had gone unnoticed since 1783," says the article's author David McCarthy, Senior Numismatist at Kagin's Inc., "Within hours of finding out that the United States had won the Revolutionary War, the guy running the country was ordering its very first coin!"

The coin, known as the "Plain Obverse Nova Constellatio Quint," or "Quint," and was designed by Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Hopkinson also designed the United States flag, later sewn by Betsy Ross.

The nation's first coin was also the first decimal coin struck in Western Europe or North America, making the Quint the direct ancestor to the dollar, and consequently all money used in the world today. After being shown to founding father Alexander Hamilton in April of 1783, it disappeared from history, until it was rediscovered in the holdings of an unnamed New York City family in 1870.

"Mr. McCarthy's historical insight and research skills have once again brought to light an important and previously unrecognized moment in American history: the events surrounding the creation of the first coin produced by the United States," says Douglas Mudd, Curator of the American Numismatic Association's Edward C. Rochette Money Museum.

Read the full article here: https://www.money.org/act-of-independence

News media contacts:
David McCarthy, Kagin's, Inc.
Office: 415-435-2601 Mobile: 415-847-6305 Email: [email protected]

SOURCE David J. McCarthy

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