NNP

JOURNAL OF EARLY AMERICAN NUMISMATICS V6N2

Table of Contents

Editor's Preface

Elie Gervais and the Fantastic Historiography of EG FECIT
JESSE KRAFT

The Story of South Carolina's Ill-Fated Coinage and the Soho Mint's Involvement in America's Early Coins
CHRISTOPHER R. MCDOWELL

Eighteenth-Century Provisional Copper Coins and Paper Money in Cuba and Puerto Rico
ANGEL 0. NAVARRO ZAYAS

Discovery of Fractional Paper Money in Use in Puerto Rico at the End of the Eighteenth Century
ANGEL 0. NAVARRO ZAYAS

1652 Willow Tree Coinage Census
MARK BORCKARDT, JULIA CASEY, JESSE KRAFT, CHRISTOPHER MCDOWELL, JEFF ROCK, CHRISTOPHER J. SALMON

Editor's Preface

This year's World's Fair of Money in Pittsburgh was a milestone for the Journal of EarlyAmerican Numismatics. Either directly or indirectly, JEAN or members of our editorialcommittee received five Numismatic Literary Guild Awards, including the Best Club/Non-ProfitPeriodical award. This is the second time in four years that JEAN has received this covetedaward. Our success is due entirely to the quality of articles we attract and our editorialcommittee's hard work and diligence. JEAN's staff is comprised entirely of volunteer experts invarious fields of early American numismatics, working together as a team to bring oursubscribers each issue.

Two of 2022's top articles appeared in JEAN. Julia Casey received the Best Column or Article:Numismatic History or Personalities for her monograph appearing in JEAN 5:1 (June 2022) titledBenjamin Dudley: Maker of the Nova Constellatio Patterns. Another editorial committeemember, Dr. Jesse Kraft, received the prestigious James L Miller Award for the Article or Storyof the Year for The 'Wild Scheme' of Sydney P. Noe: The 1942 Exhibition of MassachusettsBay Silver Coinage at the American Numismatic Society, which appeared in JEAN 5:2 (Dec.2022). This is the top award an author can receive for a numismatic article, and it is an awardthat has been bestowed on multiple JEAN authors in recent years. Julia's and Jesse's awards areopen to articles on any numismatic topic, not just articles on colonial numismatics. If you did notread one of these articles, do yourself a favor and go back and do so now.

Over the past five years, almost every top numismatic literary award has gone to an articledealing with American colonial numismatics. We are living in the Golden Age of colonialnumismatics. In my decidedly biased and undeniably accurate opinion, the most boisterous andconvivial group in all numismatics are those involved in colonial coins, medals, and papermoney.

 

Christopher McDowell, Julia Casey, Neil Musante, and Jesse Kraft hold their plaques at the ANA convention in Pittsburgh.

In addition to the above, the Best Book: Token and Medals went to The Early Betts MedalCompanion: Medals of America's Discovery and Colonization (1492-1737), written by YeEditor and published by ANS, and the Best Column or Article: U.S. Paper Money was receivedby Neil Musante for his article on early bank note engraving that appeared in the ANS Magazinein 2023 titled Vitriolic acid, geometry, and the early technology of bank note engraving. Aswell as being a crackerjack numismatic whiz kid and star of stage and screen, Neil is a goodfriend, and his two-volume series on Medallic Washington will be the standard reference onGeorge Washington medals for generations to come. Neil has all the attributes we look for in aJEAN editor: deep numismatic knowledge honed over decades of working in the trenches at coinshows, a strong background in award-winning numismatic writing, plus design and editorialexperience. With this in mind, I asked Neil to join JEAN's editorial team, and he accepted. I amthrilled by this prospect-if for no other reason than because, on top of all his other attributes,Neil is the most gracious and fun to work with person in numismatics.

Since most of you read this preface to see a summary of the issue's contents, I will cut short thecelebratory preliminaries and get down to brass tacks. This issue of JEAN is a diamond in therough, as each article is a gem to be mined by those readers who are high-level, seriousresearchers and scholars of numismatics. Herein is solid primary research material that will bewidely sought after in the years to come. If I were to put one issue in a time capsule to be read byfuture generations of numismatic collectors and scholars, this would be it. I am confident that thematerial contained within these pages will be as valuable one hundred years from now as it istoday.

Ye Editor and Julia Casey have gained full access to a treasure trove of original colonialnumismatic documentation at the Birmingham Library, namely Matthew Boulton'scorrespondence, private handwritten notes on coining, and the overall records of the Soho mint.These records have been known to numismatists for a long time. However, the depths of thesepapers have yet to be fully plumbed from an American perspective. Over JEAN's next fewissues, we will bring this information to our readers in various formats, including verbatimtranscripts and monographs.

Matthew Boulton was the central figure of numismatics for decades. He would eventually cometo dominate the global coining industry, crushing his competitors at home and abroad and puttingmany counterfeiters out of business. Boulton, along with his partner, James Watt, applied steamengine technology to the coin press, ushering in the Industrial Revolution. He also transformeddie production and the coin-making process. Boulton closely monitored events in America,hoping to one day nab the fabled American federal coining contract should the opportunity everpresent itself. To this end, he regularly corresponded with many influential and aspiringAmerican minters. Thus, his private correspondence provides excellent insights into not onlypre-industrial and early-industrial English coining but also American colonial numismatics. Weare excited to begin this journey of exploration with two articles in this issue.

A year ago, in JEAN 5:2 (Dec. 2022), we brought you the catalogue raisonné for the 1652 NewEngland NE Coinage. That was a dry run for our larger and more comprehensive Willow Treeproject that appears in this issue. Over a year in the making, the greatest numismatic minds inMassachusetts silver have banded together to bring you this monograph. From first-hand knowledge, I can attest that no stone or numismatic collection has been left undisturbed in thequest to find and document every solitary Willow Tree coin. I believe this Massachusetts silvercoinage project is the most significant undertaking in colonial numismatics. When they crackopen the time capsule, this article will attract the most attention. Publication of material like theBoulton papers and the Willow Tree census is why JEAN exists. If it were not for JEAN, thesecritical works would not have a home and remain the intellectual property of a few individuals.Most of us will never own a Willow Tree coin. Nonetheless, I strongly encourage you to readthis article. Please be aware that we are not stopping here; next year, we hope to publish an evenmore ambitious census on the Oak Tree coinage, eventually capping everything off with a PineTree coinage census.

As I teased in my last Editor's Preface, this issue presents something new on the ever-popularContinental dollar topic. Dr. Jesse Kraft has been hiking across Europe, searching for thesmoking gun that will put to rest all questions pertaining to the Continental dollar. He returnedwith a mysteriously nice suntan, a longer but well-trimmed beard, and an incredible story for ourreaders on Elie Gervais, a man perhaps better known by his initials EG. Scholarship and writinglike this can only be found on these pages. Slowly, the tumblers click into place one by one, andthe door behind which rests all the answers to the Continental dollar is about to spring open.

Our final offerings come from our dear friend Ángel Navarro Zayas, the Assistant Dean ofAcademic Affairs at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe (the Center ofAdvanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean). Once again, we are indebted to Ángel forbringing us articles related to Caribbean topics. Large or small, the Caribbean islands were oftenmore valuable to Spain, France, and England than all of Canada and the American colonies. Theriches from these islands filled the coffers of Europe. Naturally, the numismatic past of thisregion is diverse, rich, and essential to our study of American coins and medals. As the corpus ofÁngel's work continues to build and develop, we hope he will continue to bless us with theseofferings.

In closing, I want to thank you, our subscribers, without whom this past year of numismaticexcellence would not have been possible. I also want to congratulate Julia, Neil, and Jesse onreceiving their NLG awards and thank the entire team of JEAN editors for their contributions.Finally, I want to thank Andrew Reinhard for his many years of support and hard work as thepublisher of the Colonial Newsletter (CNL) and JEAN. When I took over CNL, it was on death'sdoor-days, if not hours, from being discontinued. Andrew worked tirelessly with me to reviveand improve it into the superior publication you hold in your hands. Andrew had faith in thepotential of this publication and in a neophyte Appalachian editor, for which I shall be forevergrateful. I wish him the very best in all his future endeavors. And I wish all of you a Happy andhealthy New Year.

Christopher R. McDowell
Cincinnati, Ohio
November 26, 2023

For more information on the American Numismatic Society, see:
http://numismatics.org/

For more information on the Journal of Early American Numismatics, see:
https://numismatics.org/about-us/publications/journals/