Q.David Bowers
Later, on March 3, 1794, Congress provided that the bond of the assayer be reduced to $1,000 and that of the chief coiner to $5,000. Cox and Voigt complied, with the result that the first silver coins were issued in that year. The year following, 1795, saw the first gold mintage.
The coinage of 1792 silver pieces outside of the Mint is substantiated by a document located by Walter Breen. Dated April 9, 1844, the statement of J. R. McClintock, an official of the Treasury, notes:
In conversation with Mr. Adam Eckfeldt today at the Mint, he informed me that the Half Dismes ... were struck at the request of Gen. Washington to the extent of One Hundred Dollars which sum he deposited in Bullion or Specie for the purpose-the Mint was not at the time fully ready for going into operation-the coining machinery was in the cellar of Mr. Harper's, saw maker at the corner of Cherry and 6th streets, at which place these pieces were struck.
The first coins produced at the United States Mint itself were probably struck in December 1792. Henry Voigt's account book has the notation "Struck off a few pieces of copper coin" under the date of December 17th. On the following day, December 18, 1792, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President Washington with information pertaining to coinage:
Th. Jefferson has the honor to send the President two cents made on Voigt's plan by putting a silver plug worth 3/4 of a cent into a copper worth 1/4 cent.
Mr. Rittenhouse is about to make a few by mixing the same plug by fusion with the same quantity of copper. He will then make of copper alone of the same size & lastly he will make the real cent as ordered by Congress, four times as big. Specimens of these several ways of making the cent may now be delivered to the Committee of Congress now having the subject before them.
Frank H. Stewart, a Philadelphia electrical contractor who demolished the original Mint buildings during the early 20th century, found at the time two planchets used for making 1792 pattern silver center cents, thus verifying that the pieces were almost certainly struck on the Mint premises.
Pattern coins of 1792 were made in several formats.
The silver center cent was an attempt to reduce the size of the denomination by inserting in the center a plug made of silver, a more valuable metal than the surrounding copper. From the same dies pieces were struck in so-called fusible alloy, a mixture of silver and copper. The latter alloy was not satisfactory, for only an expert metallurgist would have been able to distinguish the presence of silver.
Birch's address was given as Mr. Stite's, No. 178 Queen Street.
Alexander Vattemare and James Ross Snowden both associated Robert Birch with the early pattern issues. Existing records include no payments to anyone named Birch. Walter Breen notes that the omission is not conclusive, for in 1793, the following year, no payments are recorded to Jean Pierre Droz or Joseph Wright for the dies they engraved.
Carl W. A. Carlson, a student of early coinage, is investigating another possibility: the Birch cent dies may have been engraved in England.
A unique variant of the Birch cent, struck in white metal and known only from the example in the Garrett Collection, omits the Birch signature on the obverse. The reverse, instead of bearing the denomination 1/100, has the initials G. W. Pt., for "George Washington President."
The 1792 half disme, struck in silver, was apparently minted to the extent of between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces. The obverse depicts a female head, similar to that found on the larger _Birch cent but reversed and facing to the left. The reverse shows a wingspread eagle. As President Washington's November 6, 1792, address noted, the pieces were specifically made for circulation. Apparently the half dismes were released into the channels of commerce, for nearly all specimens known today show extensive wear.
The 1792 disme bears on the obverse a female head facing left with long flowing tresses. The engraving may have been done by Joseph Wright, who is believed to have cut the dies for the 1793 half cent which bears a related portrait. The reverse shows a wingspread eagle, below which is the denomination DISME. The "disme" term was derived from the French language; the pronunciation is the same as the" dime" we use today. Soon the superfluous S was dropped.
Distinctive among 1792 patterns are the quarter dollar issues, in copper and white metal, engraved by Joseph Wright. Taxay quotes a description of the piece, erroneously designated as a cent, furnished by William Dunlap, an artist who was one of Wright's contemporaries:
He [Wright] was a modeller in clay and practiced die sinking, which last gained him the appointment, shortly before his death, of die-sinker to the Mint. (I have before me a design for a cent, made by Mr. Wright, and dated 1792. It represents an eagle standing on the half of a globe, and holding in its beak a shield with the thirteen stripes. The reverse has been drawn on the same piece of paper, and afterwards cut out.)
Early Mint records show that Wright was paid to engrave dies for a quarter dollar. As the 1792 piece is the size of a later quarter dollar (quarter dollars were first issued by the Mint in 1796), and as it bears an eagle on the reverse (a design not authorized for copper coins), it most certainly is not a cent. The quarter dollar attribution seems correct.
George G. Evans, in the History of the United States Mint and Coinage, relates that during the discussion which resulted in the eagle being selected as the bird depicted on our coins, the following ensued:
A member of the House from the South bitterly opposed the choice of the eagle, on the grounds of its being the "king of birds," and hence neither proper nor suitable to represent a nation whose institutions and interests were wholly inimical to monarchial forms of government.
Judge Thatcher playfully, in reply, suggested that perhaps a goose might suit the gentleman, as it was a rather humble and republican bird, and it would also be serviceable in other respects, as the goslings would answer to place upon the dimes.
This answer created considerable merriment, and the irate Southerner, conceiving the humorous rejoinder as an insult, sent a challenge to the judge, who promptly declined it. The bearer, rather astonished, asked "Will you be branded as a coward?" "Certainly, if he pleases," replied Thatcher, "I always was one and he knew it, or he never would have risked a challenge."
The affair occasioned much mirth, and in due time the former existing cordial relations were restored between the parties; the irritable Southerner concluding there was nothing to be gained in fighting with one who fired nothing but jokes.