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1 New England Shilling, Massachusetts, 1652

National Museum of American History
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Object Details

Massachusetts Bay Colony
Description
Produced at John Hull's private mint in Boston. Obverse: Script NE (for New England). Reverse: XII for twelve pence, or one shilling. Boston was founded in 1630. Within two decades, it had become a prosperous, thriving community, engaging in legal trade with the mother country and clandestine trade with Spanish America.
Perpetually short of coinage, the proper Bostonians came up with an unorthodox idea: they would take a portion of the silver coming in from the south, melt it down, and make coins from it. Their first efforts were modest. They recast the silver, beat it into thin sheets, then cut more-or-less round blanks from it. The blanks were struck with simple designs, once on each side.
The resulting coins were fairly easy to counterfeit. They were very easy to clip off some of the metal (and a portion of their value would be thereby removed). Embarrassed bureaucrats soon legislated more sophisticated designs that took up all of each side of the coin.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
Emery May Holden Norweb
1652
ID Number
1982.0798.0001
accession number
1982.0798
catalog number
82.798.01
Object Name
coin
Physical Description
silver (overall metal)
0 (overall die axis)
0 (overall die axis measurement)
struck (overall production method)
Measurements
overall: .1 cm x 2.8 cm; 1/32 in x 1 3/32 in
place made
United States: Massachusetts
Related Publication
Feingold, Ellen R.. Value of Money, The
Glossary of Coins and Currency Terms
Related Web Publication
http://americanhistory.si.edu/coins/glossary.cfm
See more items in
Work and Industry: National Numismatic Collection
Coins, Currency and Medals
National Museum of American History
Record ID
nmah_1076337
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ab-b0ec-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Related Content

  • National Numismatic Collection:Introduction

    American History Museum
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