Proposed National Issues (1776-1787)

About This Series

Documenting America's earliest attempts to establish a national coinage before the Philadelphia Mint opened in 1792, these proposed national issues span the Revolutionary and Confederation periods. The series begins with the iconic 1776 Continental Currency dollar — bearing Benjamin Franklin's sundial design with FUGIO and MIND YOUR BUSINESS — and encompasses the Nova Constellatio patterns of 1783 (Gouverneur Morris's proposed decimal system), the Immune Columbia pieces, and the Fugio cents of 1787 that became America's first federally authorized coinage. Many designs were conceived or influenced by Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris, two Founders whose contributions to monetary theory shaped the dollar-cent system codified in the Coinage Act of 1792. These pieces reveal the intellectual ferment behind American money — competing visions of decimal systems, denominational structures, and design philosophies debated, tested in metal, and refined over more than a decade. For collectors, they offer tangible connections to the founding moment when the physical identity of American currency was being invented.