What Is Your Favorite Colonial Coin ?

Hi and to CCF!

I think they are all really cool. The earlier the better. I think Pine or Oak Tree Shillings and Vermont copper landscapes are my favorites. But that's probably because I don't own any yet.

None of those are colonials, the state coppers and the vermont coppers are not colonials either.

While technically not Colonials, state coppers and the like have always been collected under the "colonial" banner. Even the "Colonial Newsletter" one of the original publications for colonials has always been heavily State coppers. Todays "C4" "Colonial Coin Collectors club" is also heavily State coppers. Heck I've been collecting them for over forty years and while not technically correct I still call them colonials. I suppose pre Federal or early American would be better.

I would say when the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 and they had actually won their independence. (July 1776 was when we DECLARED our independence, 1783 was when we actually BECAME independent.) Until that time they were still colonies, just colonies in rebellion. And then also in 1783 they ratified the Articles of Confederation and became States of the larger Federal Union. (Vermont was not a part of the Confederation, it could best be described as being an independent country. It didn't become a state until 1791.) The Fugio was an issuance of the new Federal Government, not a colony. The issues of CT, NJ, and MA were issues of the States after they ceased to be colonies. This was permitted by the Articles of Confederation. The Federal government set the standards but the states were allow to issue coinage to those standards. Once the Constitution was ratified the states lost the right to create their own money. (The question about when the Constitution was ratified has its own problems. The standard answer is 1787 when 9 states had ratified it, that being the 2/3rd required as stated in the Constitution itself. But that was kind of a circular reasoning, a change in the ratification rules contained in the document that is being ratified. That shouldn't be possible because until it is ratified those rules don't apply. The rules that applied should have been the rules under the Articles of Confederation which required UNANIMOUS consent. The last of the 13 states didn't ratify the Constitution until 1791.

Thanks so much for all the information Conder101 ! I was wrong personally about the large cent and Half Cent , I meant to mentioned earlier coinage . I don't believe you mentioned , what is your favorite colonial coin ?