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The Washington Pattern Coins of 1785

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alter Breen described the next three coins on this list as “pattern decads” struck by George Wyon. Decad was a term or denomination put forward by the Continental Congress and was intended for use on copper coins with a value equal to 1/100th of a Spanish dollar. Ultimately, the usage was dropped from the bill, and its application to these mules or patterns seems speculative at best. In this list, they are simply referred to as the Gen. Washington patterns or mules. Baker believed them to be of American origin, and that they presented a portrait “very far from any original and still more uninteresting, the name alone indicating the purpose of the engraver.” Crosby thought they might have been issued as patterns, possibly with a national ambition. He also thought they were issued by the same maker as the 1785 Nova Constellatio 1 , with the Libertas Et Justitia and Immune Columbia obverses, whom he identified simply as Wyon. His source was an unpublished manuscript by Charles Bushnell, titled Bushnell’s Numismatic Notes: Breen later wrote that they were actually struck by George Wyon. Thus, it has been presumed that the mules and later-date issues from these dies were also made by Wyon. Breen and others have speculated that somehow one or two of the dies subsequently traveled to America where they were paired with dies made by Walter Mould, James F. Atlee and John Bailey. How this actually came about is not clear, but Breen has claimed that Walter Mould was a former “pupil” of George Wyon and must have brought them with him when he came to America. The difficulty here is that Mould may have arrived in America as early as 1782 (Siboni, p. 24). In all likelihood, the General Washington mules and the Nova Constellatios, were all struck in America by dies that were actually made in America. In 1783, Gouverneur Morris suggested a rather complex decimal coinage system that would align with most of the coins then circulating in the States. Robert Morris (no relation), Superintendent of Finance for the Continental Congress, worked to establish a mint and employed the services of an expatriate English die engraver named Benjamin Dudley, who made several patterns based on Gouverneur Morris’ plan. On one side of the coin is an all seeing eye with thirteen rays emanating outward surrounded by thirteen stars and the motto NOVA CONSTELLATIO. The other side of the coin has the letters U.S. and the denomination within a wreath, with LIBERTAS JUSTITIA and the date, 1783, around. The coins were proposed in five denominations, only four of which are known today, the Mark (1000 units), the Quint (500 units), the Bit (100 units), an eight-unit coin (no examples known to exist), and a five-unit coin. 2 Today, they are among the rarest and most desirable of all U.S. coinage. 3 A trail of documentation for the creation of these patterns exists in both the Congressional Record and Robert Morris’ personal diary. According to Breen, “After silver bullion for Gouverneur Morris’s proposed federal coinage proved elusive ... Morris traveled to England, and in 1785 apparently ordered coppers from Wyon’s mint in Birmingham” (Breen, p. 117). These would have been the non-denominational Nova Constellatio coins with the Libertas Et Justitia and Immune Columbia obverses. There are several problems with Breen’s conjecture. The first is that both Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris held a strong conviction that national sovereignty depended upon a government’s ability to coin its own money. Having it done in England would be totally inconsistent with their beliefs. A second problem is that neither of the Morrises traveled to England in late The Nova Constellatios were made in Brimingham, in England, and the dies were cut by Wyon, of that place. Over forty tons were issued from one die alone, and many more from another. They were manufactured by order of a gentleman of New York, who is believed to have been Gouverneur Morris. (Crosby, p. 331).

8 • Medallic Washington