1778 So-Called Dollar HK-858, Continental Congress Confederation

Coin Details

Auction Record

Description

For years this Continental Currency and Confederation piece was credited to Thomas L. Elder, but Thomas K. DeLorey, cataloguing Elder's work in The Numismatist in June and July 1980, argued that Professor Montroville W. Dickeson made it. His case rests on the planchets: thick copper and white metal blanks unlike anything in a proven Elder issue but close to those of some Dickeson pieces of 1876. HK-858 is the brass striking, DeLorey 88. One face repeats the sundial obverse of Dickeson's Continental dollar copy; the other copies the Confederation vignette from the forty-dollar notes the Continental Congress issued in 1778 and 1779. Hibler and Kappen list the pairing in a long run of metals: copper (HK-857, 39 mm), brass, German-silver (HK-859), white metal (HK-860), silver (HK-860a), aluminum (HK-860b), lead (HK-860c) and brownish red fiber (HK-860d).

Cross References

HK-858; PCGS #643607