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No. 3
A subset of The Colonial Newsletter
4 September 1995
Published by The Colonial Newsletter Foundation, Inc.
P.O. Box 4411
Huntsville, AL 35815, USA
Dear CNL Cyberspace Patrons (and Friends):
Our quote for the day:
To paraphrase A.S.W. Rosenbach,
"After love, coin collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all."
From: Dr. Brad Broughton
Professor of Technical Communications; Technical Communications
Department;
Clarkson University; Potsdam, NY 13699-5760, USA
CNL-100 is in the mail. Here is the table of contents for the issue which celebrates "35 years of Modern Research In Early American Numismatics":
John Adams: 1693 Indian Peace Medal--Pages 1507-1510
David Gladfelter: Tale of Two Elephants--Pages 1511-1514
Mike Ringo: Georgivs Triumpho--Pages 1515-1520
Ray Williamson: Early Breen--Pages 1521-1530
Eric Newman: 1764 Broadside--Pages 1531-1533
Gray Trudgen: John Bridge's Tavern--Pages 1534-1540
Mike Hodder: Mike Hodder's Top Picks--Pages 1541-1547
Roger Moore: NJ 17-y with VT Undertype--Pages 1548-1551
Sandy Partridge: (a) 1781 Vermont Notes--Pages 1552-1560
(b) Illustrations (JCS)--Pages 1561-1569
Kenneth Bressett: An Altered Vermont Note
(c) Follow on to Partridge--Pages 1570-1573
George Perkins: Connecticut Census--Pages 1574-1577
Herbert Silberman: The New Jersey Story--Pages 1578-1586
Internet; Reminiscences; Letters; & Items for Future Discussion--Pages 1587-1591
Our Patrons, of course, are now receiving their issues in the U.S. Mail. Others who would like to receive a copy of this special issue may do so by sending $5.00 in U.S. funds to our U.S. Mail address shown in the header. This $5.00 offer is limited to the United States and Canada; those outside the U.S. should add sufficient additional postage for one pound weight printed matter/surface rate (or Airmail, specify which) from the U.S. to your address. This special offer will expire December 30, 1995. After that date the single issue price is expected to be $8.00 US.
Of special interest in CNL-100 is an early photograph of Walter H. Breen for which we have been unable to determine a date. The photo appears on page 1521. Ye Editor scanned the photo into the CNL computer and blew it up to about 3x lifesize, greyscale. Walter is wearing a badge of somesort that is almost totally obscured by his left hand.
What can be seen is: NUM( ? ? ? )
S( ? ? ? )
CLEVEL( ? ? ? )
July ( ? ? ? )
19 ( ? )
or, perhaps - ? -
NUM(ISMATIC)
S(HOW)
CLEVEL(AND, OHIO)
July (-?-)
19( ?? )
Can anyone out there accurately fill in the blanks?
There are several important numismatic events during October which should be of interest to our Patrons:
1995 Coinage of the Americas Conference at the American Numismatic Society (COAC/ANS) October 28 in New York. This year's conference subject is Coinage of the American Confederation.
A preliminary listing of programs includes:
The First C4 Convention is scheduled for October 20-22 in Pennsauken, NJ. In addition, the Third NJ Copper Symposium will be held on Friday October 20, 1995 in conjunction with the C4 and MANA conventions. Details regarding these two activities were contained in our previous issue of CNL Online (No. 2).
Advance notice to anyone living in or otherwise visiting New Zealand on 7 October from Martin Purdy
The Wellington Coin Club's annual Fair will be held on Saturday 7 October 1995 at the Wesleyan Hall, 75 Taranaki Street, Wellington (access via walkway between the Church and the Administration Centre). The Fair will have the usual format, with dealers in attendance, a raffle, members' displays etc. The hall will be open from 10am to 4pm.
Martin Purdy; Secretary, Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand
There have been several very complimentary comments recently on the Internet regarding the Smithsonian's Web page of numismatics. Take a look at:
<http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/homepage/numismatics/numismatis.netscape.html>
(We hope we got all of that correct! If not, someone please let us know. JCS)
The current issue of the C4 Newsletter failed to include the mailing address for the new editor, Dan Freidus <74143.2544@compuserve.com>
It is:
Dan Freidus; C4 Newsletter Editor
116 Chapin St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
USA
phone (work) +1 313 761-4700 ext 2172
From time to time this question continues to pop up. We were of the opinion that the late Walter H. Breen had reasonably well established in 1973 that CONSTELLATIO NOVA was the correct form in his five point argument presented in CNL. Walter's discussion was the result of facts presented by Eric P. Newman in an earlier Research Forum question in CNL. We are presenting here for the benefit of our Patrons, as well as Friends of CNL, these two short papers extracted from two early CNL issues:
================================================================== October 1973 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 422 ==================================================================
* * Regarding RF-52 (CNL, April 1973, p. 401). Where were the Nova Constellatios coined--Birmingham or Greenwich?
* from Eric P. Newman (RF-52A)
St. Louis, Missouri
I wrote up this matter in the Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine in January, 1960, p.6, but had not then located the data in the English papers. Enclosed is that data--it shows that Birmingham was the source. The person who wrote it must have known what he was talking about as he was correcting others.
The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser No. 5252 Thurs. March 16, 1786 page 3, top right corner:
A correspondent observes, that the paragraph which has lately appeared in several papers, respecting a copper coinage in America, is not true. The piece spoken of, bearing the inscription, "Libertas et Justitia, &c." was not made in America, nor by the direction of Congress. It was coined at Birmingham, by the order of a merchant in New York. Many tons were struck from this dye, and many from another; and they are now in circulation in America, as counterfeit halfpence are in England.
The "paragraph" which gave rise to this comment appeared in several London (England) newspapers during the period March 11-14, 1786 including The Morning Herald; The Public Advertiser; The London Chronicle as well as The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser:
The American Congress have lately made a copper coinage, which is now in general circulation: one side of the halfpenny bears this circular inscription, Libertas et Justitia; round a central cypher U.S. On the reverse is a sun rising amidst Thirteen Stars, circularly inscribed Constellatio Nova.
All the extracts were paragraphs amidst general news produced unsigned and unreferenced.
================================================================== September 1974 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 453 ==================================================================
CONSTELLATIO NOVA (TN-46)
* * from Walter H. Breen; Berkeley, California
It is good to see those newspaper clippings quoted by Eric Newman. (CNL, October 1973, p. 422) They not only give credibility to theories earlier quoted and requoted without additional direct evidence; they also confirm something I have long suspected. This is that the so-called NOVA CONSTELLATIO coppers should in fact be read CONSTELLATIO NOVA. The lines of evidence are rather odd but to me conclusive, and Eric has provided the most direct one of all:
CONSTELLATIO NOVA is better Latin. The transposed version doubtless derives from early coin dealers who, like Jonson's Shakespeare, possessed "small Latin and less Greek."
When I finally obtained access to specimens anywhere near uncirculated, I found that the eye has an unequivocal eyebrow, and that it is upright as it should be only if CONSTELLATIO is above, making the legend begin at left--about 9:00--whereas if NOVA were in fact the intended beginning, it would have to be about 4:00 or 4:30 which is hardly rational. See Guidebook, p. 36, top illustration.
Die alignments on all specimens of every variety I have examined, except for the Twelve Star counterfeit which I know only from photographs of Eric's coin, in fact indicate that the coiners intended CONSTELLATIO as the beginning.
Some of these same dies were used by Wyon in 1785 & 1786 on patterns reading IMMUNE or IMMUNIS COLUMBIA. Now IMMUNE is a preposterous solecism, and this die was given by Wyon to his pupil Walter Mould, who brought it over to New Jersey, though for some reason he did not use it as part of his Morristown Mint operations. However, from him--or his assigns when he fled the state during August 1788 to evade debtor's prison--it did pass to Machin's Mills, where it was muled with a Vermont and a CEORCIVS III REX obverse (both Atlee rejects), being struck on small clumpy planchets evidently from the same lot that yielded Vermont Ryder 30 and New Jersey Maris 69-w. IMMUNE COLUMBIA would have been grounds for a beating in any British grade school. What is called for is an adjective, nominative, feminine, agreeing with COLUMBIA, hence the correct version IMMUNIS COLUMBIA found on 1786 dies. IMMUNE is construable either as an adverb or as a neuter noun but in neither instance is it correct in that combination.
================================================================== September 1974 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 454 ==================================================================
In line with the preceding: IMMUNIS COLUMBIA CONSTELLATIO NOVA is scannable as a hexameter verse--
- - - - - u u - - - u u - u
(Im-mu-/ nis Co-/ lum-bi-a // con-stel-/ la-ti-o / no-va.)
[Editor's note: Because of our inability to transmit diacritical markings over the Internet we have chosen, as in the example above, the following: - = macron, indicating long vowel quantity, and u = breve, indicating short vowel quantity. JCS]
It is not very good verse, but it DOES scan that way, which it would not either if IMMUNE were used, or if the wording were NOVA CONSTELLATIO. It is slightly defective in that the final A should be long rather than short, but this license is fairly often found in the classical period. Now both Thomas Jefferson and Gouverneur Morris were educated men, at a time when educated people prided themselves on being able to construct Latin verse, even as British public school graduates do to the present day; and a hexameter in those days, read rhymically (prolong the - syllables, shorten the U ones, let the stresses fall where they may, and chant the whole thing), was the equivalent of a slogan, something like WE SHALL OVERCOME! or IMPEACH WITH HONOR!, likely to be on everyone's lips with its more-than-subliminal message. After all, epics were written in that kind of verse precisely because it was easy to remember and to declaim, at a time when writing was rare, writing materials equally so. And so we can safely assume that this was in a way easy to remember and hard to forget, that "The heavens now proclaim America free." A vehicle for propaganda for a newborn nation, barely escaped from tyranny.
Which brings up the question of the correct reading for the pattern Decads of 1785, also by Wyon, to devices and legends suggested by Thomas Jefferson. These are the copper pieces reading INIMICA TYRANNIS AMERICA (or AMERICANA), with the Goddess Diana, arrow in right hand, bow in left, quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, trampling on a crown, beside her an alter on which is a cap of liberty equally interpretable as a helmet. Reverse CONFEDERATIO and 13 stars within a glory of rays.
Jefferson's Propositions Respecting the Coinage of Gold, Silver and Copper, dated May 13, 1785 (while he was in Paris), recommends the device of an Indian trampling on a crown, with MANUS INIMICA TYRANNIS. (Papers of Thomas Jefferson,VII, 202.) A deleted paragraph of the report of the Grand Committee (JCC, XXVIII, 354-8; Papers of Continental Congress, No. 26, pp. 537-42, in National Archives) suggested the name "Decad" for the largest copper coin, and for the device the union of 13 stars in circle with a serrated border representing rays, and CONFEDERATIO 1785 (JCC, XXVIII, 358). The paragraph was deleted from the printed report, apparently by Hugh Williamson (acting chairman) or by vote of the committee. But Jefferson knew of the committee's inner workings, and he would surely have known of the proposed designs (if indeed he was not their instigator), as well as of Wyon's facilities; he is therefore the most logical go-between for transmitting them to Wyon, even for patterns for a possible contract coinage.
================================================================== September 1974 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 455 ==================================================================
Only one version of the alternative legends produces a hexameter verse:
- u u - u u - u u - u u - u u - -
Con-fe-de-/ ra-ti-o // A-me-ri- / ca in-i- / mi-ca ty-/ ran-nis!
Despite the false quality (the long syllable ending America).
We may therefore conclude that this was the original intent, having CONFEDERATIO as the obverse, with the large stars (as in the sketch preserved in JCC), and AMERICA rather than AMERICANA. It may be rudely englished as follows:
"United America, Tyranny's Foe!"
Why then the other reading with AMERICANA, which destroys the scansion? Probably because Wyon thought it worth while giving alternative versions to whoever might be in a position to order contract coinage on behalf of the colonies, even as Obadiah Westwood was to do a few years later via Thomas Ketland & Son with the Large and Small Eagle Cents.
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