Confederate Coins|Confederate States of America

1861 Confederate Half Dollar - The Confederate Half Dollar used the Seated Liberty federal obverse designed by Christian Gobrecht. It depicts Liberty seated looking over her shoulder to the left. She balances the Union Shield inscribed LIBERTY with her right hand and holds a staff on which is placed a Phrygian cap in her left. There are seven stars to the left and six to the right interrupted by her head and the capped pole. The date is below. The reverse, designed by A.H. M. Patterson, a New Orleans engraver and die sinker, shows a Confederate shield surrounded by an open wreath of cotton and wheat tied with a bow at the bottom. On a pole at the top of the shield is a Phrygian cap. The inscription CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA is in an arc at the top, and the denomination, written as HALF DOL. is below.

Immediately following the Civil War, numismatists did not know that the Confederate States had its own coinage with distinctive designs. However, after the war, Dr. B.F. Taylor, the former Chief Coiner for the Confederacy, retained in his possession the reverse die of the CSA fifty cent piece and four original coins. He kept this die secretly in fear of being prosecuted by the Union for treason since he supervised the manufacturing of the enemy’s coinage. In 1879, he revealed in the New Orleans Picayune that he had the die and an original coin. Ebenezer Locke Mason, Jr., a coin dealer bought the die and coin and sold them to J.W. Scott. When the editor or the American Journal of Numismatics learned of the restrike, he said, “This piece having been struck in the New Orleans Mint by government officers, with government tools, and on silver stolen from the United States, should be restored to its true ownership, and then it be place in the Mint Cabinet. The obverse die, we hear, was claimed by the government; why not the reverse also?”

Scott, a creative entrepreneur, wanted to promote and make restrikes of the half dollar. The die that he bought was rusted and a piece of the border near ER had been chipped. He didn’t think the die would last too long; however, he used it to make 500 merchant tokens. Since the die did not deteriorate during this run, Scott put his original plan into place. He used 500 1861 federal half dollars, some from circulation, and supposedly all from the New Orleans Mint. With the help of David Proskey, a New York coin dealer and cataloger for J.W. Scott and Company; Scott held four coins on a brass block with the obverse facing down and using a collar to prevent spreading, overstruck the coins with the Confederate reverse. The result was not particularly satisfying because the images of the original Federal and the CSA reverses mingled. To ameliorate this problem, Proskey planed off the reverses of the remaining 500 half dollars. They were then struck with the Confederate reverse. The result was that the restrikes produced had obverse flatness and unevenly struck reverses with weakness often seen in the legend. The coins were also lighter than the original by about half of a gram. After he struck these restrikes, Scott annealed the die and used a chisel to deface it.

Since Proskey was able to take care of the operations, Scott was free to begin a marketing plan to sell the restrikes. He advertised that his offering was oversubscribed; however, only a portion of the mintage had been sold. Proskey later said that the remaining pieces were in Scott’s inventory for many years. It was not until the 1920’s that they were extensively distributed.

Modern copies of the Scott restrikes have been made in the last sixty years. They are usually struck in white metal or bronze and have little or no collector value. Authentic restrikes made by Scott are highly desirable numismatic pieces.