Fugio

Someone after my own heart! Just posted my Fugio again recently:
https://goccf.com/t/126304

Franklin didn't "make" the Fugio, but he did craft the designs, which were first used in the 1776 note in my avatar. The difference in the obverse image of the Fugio was set down in the act of Congress that created them; they specified "a meridian sun," or noontime, instead of the sun to the left. Did they mean to make the statement that the nation had just "dawned" in 1776, but eleven years later, America's day was now well underway?

Here is a great resource as well:

http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/Col...o.intro.html

It's nice to see yet another collector interested in Colonials ;-)
There are a few inexpensive specimens on the bay right now.

Until very recently, all we could say was that the Fugio design was attributed to Benjamin Franklin. No one could say for sure until numismatist extraordinaire Eric P. Newman found these sketches among Franklin's own papers:





I like to picture Franklin locked in his study with his compass and protractors, and a bottle of Madeira, trying to geometrically plot out thirteen evenly-spaced rings.

Newman's book on the Fugio coppers is really incomparable. He wrote the first treatise on them in 1949, then revised it... in 2008! The man just turned 101 this year!

I am a Fugio copper enthusiast. With patience it is not difficult to find a relatively problem-free Fugio copper in mid-grade. There are numerous die combinations that are not rare and which can be found in mid-grade. The best place to find one may be at a coin show.

It is very difficult to explain how to find material at good prices. The coin hobby and business is highly competitive. Read the book before you buy the coin is sound advice.

Even more interesting is the "Z" or Z.1 or KN Z.1 reverse which served for the earliest Fugios: 1-Z ; 12-Z; 19-Z.
In high grades, it appears that UNITED STATES as well as the fascinating ornamentation both are engraved by hand.
How these dies were prepared is beyond my comprehension, but they are very complex, certainly more complex than any large cent.

Not hub but a created punch. It would be easy to create a punch of the raised ring. The letters for UNITED STATES would then be punched into this ring and then the punch hardened. Now when it comes time to make the die this punch is pressed into the center of the die face. That gives you an incused ring with raised letters in the die. The circle of linked rings would be another punch and the letters of WE ARE ONE would be punched in individually.

Abel Buell was experimenting with hubbing in the 1780's with some of the Connecticut dies. The US mint tried some experiments in 1794 and more extensive experiments in 1798 to 1800 with hubbing full dies but not with great success. Hubbing of full dies did not come to be the accepted practice until 1836.

The "Z" reverse differs from all other production reverses. It is called the "raised rims reverse. It is more complex than the other reverses and requires a different explanation of its production.