Reconstruction Era Patterns (1866-1869)

The Civil War drove gold and silver out of circulation, and for a while even the copper-nickel cent sold at a premium. Small paper notes, some for as little as three cents, did the work of change, and the public disliked them. In 1864 the Mint replaced the copper-nickel cent with a bronze cent and a bronze two-cent piece, and both circulated. Nickel was out of the coinage, and Joseph Wharton, who controlled the main American source of the metal at Gap, Pennsylvania, wanted it back. In an 1864 pamphlet he proposed that all base-metal coins be made of 75% copper and 25% nickel. Congress gave him the three-cent piece in that alloy on March 3, 1865.

The same day, a law allowed the Mint to put IN GOD WE TRUST on gold and silver coins large enough to carry it. In 1866 Chief Engraver James B. Longacre added the motto to the quarter, half dollar and dollar and to the half eagle, eagle and double eagle, and the new five-cent piece carried it from its first year.

The five-cent piece came next. Mint Director James Pollock drafted a bill for a copper-nickel coin weighing no more than 60 grains, and the House raised the weight to five grams. Don Taxay read the change as a way for Wharton to sell more nickel. The bill passed on May 16, 1866. Longacre had started on designs in late 1865, and the 1866 patterns show his ideas side by side: a shield adapted from the two-cent piece, George Washington in two versions, Abraham Lincoln, and reverses with the numeral 5 in several styles. Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch took the shield and the stars and rays reverse on Pollock's advice. Pollock never showed him the Lincoln design.

The new nickel was hard to strike, and early in 1867 the rays came off the reverse. Longacre proposed aluminum for the five-cent piece in June 1867, and the new Director, Henry Linderman, turned it down on cost and supply. Longacre still made aluminum and copper pieces with an Indian head, and a series of Liberty heads modeled on his nickel three-cent design. In 1868 Wharton's interests proposed a copper-nickel dime and changes to the cent, three-cent and five-cent pieces, and the base-metal dime was dropped. The 1868 patterns include a nickel cent, three-cent and five-cent set and nickel ten-cent designs. Longacre also re-engraved the gold designs and finished a new eagle (J-661). He died on January 1, 1869, and his assistant William Barber, hired in 1865, succeeded him. In 1869 the Mint struck new cent, three-cent and five-cent sets and the first Standard Silver patterns. Those were lighter dime, quarter and half dollar designs that Pollock, Director again from May 1869, hoped would replace the fractional notes (search).

Many pieces in this tree were never meant to change a design. From 1867 the Mint struck its regular dies in copper and sold complete sets to collectors, and in 1868 it did the same in aluminum. The 1866 No Motto silver coins and the 1868 large cent were made only for collectors. Some mulings of 1866 and 1867 dies were struck outside the Mint, from dies that USPatterns.com believes Joseph Mickley bought as scrap.

Judd numbers. Every piece here is known by its number in Judd's United States Pattern Coins. One Judd number is one pair of dies in one metal with one edge, so the J-473 Washington design is J-473 in nickel, J-474 in copper and J-475 in bronze. A small letter marks a number added later: J-466a is the silver listing of J-464's design, and J-573a is a copper piece the earlier references missed. Judd's appendix numbers (J-A1866-1, J-A1867-14) are die trials, hub trials and splashers, and its C numbers (J-C1866-1) are private patterns from non-Mint dies. A few numbers have been retired. USPatterns.com notes that J-578 and J-578a turned out to be J-566 and J-567.

Other catalogs. USPatterns.com also gives the Adams-Woodin number, the Pollock number and, for many essais, Taxay's EP number. Pollock separates varieties that Judd joins. For example, J-570 is Pollock-638 and Pollock-640 because two obverse dies were used, and J-573 is Pollock-649 and Pollock-650 for its two reverses.

Metals and edges. These years used copper, bronze, nickel (meaning the regular 75% copper, 25% nickel alloy), copper-nickel, aluminum, brass, oroide, white metal, lead, silver and gold. Copper and bronze pieces of one design often share a single Pollock number, and USPatterns.com counts them together as "copper and/or bronze". Many pieces sold as silver, nickel or white metal have tested as something else. The 1869 "silver-nickel" dime J-714 is ordinary copper-nickel, and a white metal J-479 tested mostly as lead and bismuth. Edges are plain or reeded, and Judd numbers them separately (J-561 aluminum plain, J-562 aluminum reeded).

Die pairs. For the 1866 five-cent pieces, the obverse and reverse tell you the number. The obverses are the regular shield, a second shield with a small motto and split date, Washington with IN GOD WE TRUST, Washington with GOD AND OUR COUNTRY, Washington with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and Lincoln. The reverses are the "Dutch 5", "Tall 5", "Short 5", the regular stars and rays, and the reverse without rays. A piece with two obverses and no reverse is a muling.

Trials, essais and errors. Judd calls a regular design struck in another metal a die trial, and a new design an essai. USPatterns.com points out that several off-metal pieces of 1866 and 1867, struck on nickel three-cent or Shield nickel planchets, may be mint errors rather than trials.

Grading. NGC and PCGS grade these as proofs or as business strikes. For some numbers PCGS has a proof number while NGC's only entry is a business strike (J-457, J-551, J-552, J-601). NGC lists some numbers twice, as PF and MS (J-456, J-517, J-542), and labels gilt copper pieces separately (J-543, J-549). USPatterns.com knows only business strikes of J-552, J-556 and J-557, although proof listings exist for them.

1866

• Cents, two-cent and three-cent pieces: J-455 to J-460, the regular dies in copper, copper-nickel and nickel. Some may be mint errors on leftover stock.
• Five-cent pieces: J-461 to J-533. The Washington heads run J-461 to J-485, the Lincoln head is J-486 to J-488, and the second shield is J-489 to J-500. The regular shield with experimental reverses is J-501 to J-509a; J-507 pairs it with the first reverse without rays. The regular dies in copper, bronze and steel are J-510 to J-512. J-513 to J-533 are mulings and doubtful listings, most of them believed struck outside the Mint.
• Dime, quarter, half dollar and dollar: J-534 to J-541. The silver J-536, J-538 and J-540 are the No Motto fantasies made for Robert Coulton Davis. The copper pieces come from the regular dies with the motto.
• Gold: the quarter eagle J-542 and three-dollar J-543 in nickel, and the half eagle J-546, eagle J-548 and double eagle J-549 in copper. J-545 and J-547 are white metal half eagle mulings struck outside the Mint.

1867

• Five-cent pieces: Longacre's Indian head, J-561 to J-564, in aluminum and copper. A Mint note in the National Archives records 100 of the plain-edge aluminum pieces delivered on July 18, 1867. The Liberty heads modeled on the nickel three-cent piece are J-565 to J-571, the regular dies in copper are J-572, J-573 and J-573a, and J-574 to J-585 are mostly mulings believed struck outside the Mint.
• Cents, two-cent and three-cent pieces in copper, copper-nickel, nickel and oroide.
• Copper sets from the regular dies: the half dime J-586, dime J-587, quarter J-590, half dollar J-591, dollar J-592, gold dollar J-594, quarter eagle J-595, three-dollar J-596, half eagle J-599, eagle J-602 and double eagle J-604. There is also a brass dollar, J-593.

1868

• Cents: the nickel cent essais J-605 to J-609, issued in sets with a three-cent and a five-cent piece. The 1868 large cent fantasies are J-610 in nickel and J-611 in copper.
• Ten-cent pieces: J-641 and J-642 have a Seated obverse with no date and the date on the reverse. J-647 and J-648 are a nickel and copper essai with a head in the style of the 1840-1857 large cent.
• Gold: Longacre's new eagle, J-661, with four known in gold and more in copper and aluminum. The regular dies were also struck in aluminum for sets in every denomination from the cent to the double eagle.

1869

• New cent, three-cent and five-cent essais, again issued in sets.
• Standard Silver: three designs each for the dime (J-696 to J-713), quarter (J-721 to J-738) and half dollar (J-742 to J-759), in silver, copper and aluminum with reeded and plain edges. The 1869 dimes also include alloy trials, among them the Ruolz alloy J-716. Standard Silver continued in 1870 in its own series, Standard Silver Patterns (1870).
• Regular dies in copper, aluminum and nickel for the half dime through the double eagle.

Many of these pieces left the Mint as products for collectors. USPatterns.com describes 1867 as the first year of the off-metal copper sets. It traces four of them: the Garrett set, a nearly complete double set (two sets) that the Iowa State Historical Museum reported stolen, and a set without its half dollar offered in Europe in October 2022. The 1868 aluminum sets were made on purpose, and the 1869 Standard Silver sets were sold for $15 a set.

Some pieces are in public collections and will not come to market. The Smithsonian holds the du Pont No Motto quarter, half dollar and dollar, donated in November 2014 after the 1967 theft. Other examples sit in the Smithsonian, the American Numismatic Society, the Connecticut State Library and the Durham Museum.

The Mickley pieces were struck outside the Mint from Mint dies, often on planchets that are not Mint standard. Their metal is often uncertain, and USPatterns.com recommends testing any piece described as silver, nickel or white metal. The same caution applies to the possible mint errors among the off-metal trials.