The Fugio Cent: America's First Coin Told You to "Mind Your Business"

In April 1787, before there was a U.S. Mint and before the Constitution was written, Congress approved a copper coin. Collectors call it the Fugio cent, and it's usually counted as the first regular-issue coin of the United States.

What's On It

The front shows a sun beaming down on a sundial, with the Latin word FUGIO, "I fly," as in time flies. Under the sundial: MIND YOUR BUSINESS. The back shows thirteen linked rings, one for each state, around the words WE ARE ONE and UNITED STATES.

The Motto Everyone Reads Backwards

Today "mind your business" sounds like stay out of mine. Next to a sundial and "time flies," it's usually read the other way: time is passing, so tend to your work. The design is usually credited to Benjamin Franklin, and it borrows straight from the 1776 Continental designs: the same sundial, the same motto, the same linked rings.

The Contract That Went Wrong

Congress didn't strike the coins itself. The Board of Treasury contracted for 300 tons of copper coin with James Jarvis of New Haven, Connecticut, a deal he's generally believed to have won with a $10,000 bribe to William Duer, who headed the Board. Jarvis delivered only a fraction of the copper (the government's own account shows 8,968 pounds), and the contract was cancelled in 1788. Most Fugios were struck that year, even though every one is dated 1787.

The Keg in the Bank

In 1788 a keg of Fugio cents was put away at the Bank of New York. In 1856 the coins were repacked into cotton bags and stored again, then forgotten until they were rediscovered in 1926. After that they were handed out as souvenirs until 1948, when the American Numismatic Society examined the 1,641 that were left. The bank kept 819. It's one reason some Fugios survive looking nearly new.

How to Tell What You Have

Sundial and FUGIO on one side, thirteen rings on the other. Watch for New Haven restrikes: they look like Fugios but were made decades later (probably at the Scovill works in Waterbury, Connecticut), and they're catalogued separately.

See every Fugio variety in the catalog: Fugio Cents.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Fugio cent" (citing the American Journal of Numismatics, Colcoin, Yeoman and Wnuck); PCGS CoinFacts, "Fugio Cents"; PCGS, "Fugio Cents: The First Regular-Issue United States Coin"; CoinWeek; Greysheet.