America you just won your Independence – what are you going to do next?

Make money of course – figuratively and literally!

Most of us are pretty familiar with the Declaration of Independence written in 1776 primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson and signed by all sorts of founding fathers, including John Hancock to whom we now credit all signatures of important documents. But do you know when the war for independence officially ended? Or when we implemented our current form of Federal government? And what about the money, when did we start minting coins or printing legal tender currency –for that matter what did we use for money prior to making our own money? And even deeper, who came up with the idea of who, what when and where to start making official money for the newly free United States?

Join me here for a storybook version of how money got started in America with what we now call the Flowing Hair series of coins – 1792 to 1797. This humble beginning of our monetary system is, amazingly, still producing great wealth today with unlimited potential for future gains, as this money continues to make money!

Inspired by many contemporaries of his time Thomas Jefferson both summarized and laid out in plain English (albeit old English) justifications for separating from the mother country (England) and her King through his “We hold these truths to be self-evident” now famous style, forming the Declaration of Independence ratified July 4, 1776 – The first of four (4) documents that would come to frame the backbone of the United States. At the time of this writing all of these wonderful documents and in-depth historical information is available at the click of a mouse or a touch of your screen through the US Government at http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/

Soon after the Declaration while the war was continuing on and after much debate from all over the colonies The Articles of Confederation were adopted on November 15th, 1777 and this document served as our Nation’s constitution until 1789.

Then came the granddaddy of them all – The Constitution herself, signed September 17, 1787, was actually started as revisions to the articles of confederation, but quickly evolved into a brand new form of government – Just as it exists today.

Here is how our own government describes the forming of this document today;

“The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25. Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would draft an entirely new frame of government. All through the summer, in closed sessions, the delegates debated, and redrafted the articles of the new Constitution. Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected–directly by the people or by the state legislators. The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise.”

Can you imagine what the differences in politics must have been like in this day. At the time of this writing (2014) we have a polarized US government with a Democratic president Barack Obama (proudly our first President of color) and a divided Republican Senate with a Democratic Congress that for 6 years has not agreed upon much of anything, save for some compromise on the wars in the middle east and on humanitarian efforts in Haiti and Africa. I wonder what our founding fathers would think of our current set of Politian’s?

Which brings us to the last of the great four documents that define who we are as Nation of peoples, what are beliefs are, what our responsibilities are, how we are to treat each other, how we are to govern and how we are to relate to the rest of the world. The Bill of Rights, a grouping of 10 amendments to the Constitution that clearly outlined the rights of the people in relation to the responsibilities of the government – ratified in 1791.

Now milling about the newly formed states are all manner of founding fathers, led by our first president General George Washington, with John Adams as Vice President and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. There are no phones, cars, or planes to facilitate communications – you had to walk, ride a horse, catch a carriage, write a letter, or if you were lucky catch a train to meet with people and share your ideas. It was a relative time of peace and it would be another 12 years before the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aron Burr would take the life of one of our most influential framers the entire financial monetary system we have in place today. Hamilton was the primary author of what we now call the Federalist papers, which contained many of the foundational ideas for government, including how government should be funded and money should be measured. At this time, if you were an average Joe and wanted to go to a store to buy something, you had a wide variety of methods to pay for what you want with actual cash being one of the most confusing methods – since hard currency was not readily available, bartering or credit was a primary driver for commerce or trade, store account ledgers from our early days are chock full of famous and infamous characters proving that we are all humans that need (and in fact like) to shop. If you fancy collecting signatures from famous people, I would imagine store ledgers are equal to coin collectors finding an 1893-S Morgan Silver Dollar today.

Which brings us to this truly Amazing American Treasure!!!

THE VERY FIRST SILVER DOLLAR EVER MINTED BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

All 1794 dollars trace their pedigree to David Rittenhouse, the first Mint Director. He gave the bullion to strike the coins from his own stock of silver. The early United States Mint was dependent on private deposits of precious metals. Rittenhouse deposited $2,001.34 worth of silver on August 29, 1794 so that silver dollar striking could begin. Using Rittenhouse’s bullion and one set of dies, 2,000 silver dollars were struck. Of these, 242 were found unacceptable and were either remelted or used as planchets for the next year’s run. All 1758 dollars were delivered to Rittenhouse on October 15th, and it was his responsibility to distribute the 1758 dollar coins since he had deposited the bullion.

The 1794 dollar is a coin of great historical significance. It was authorized by our government’s first law, which was the Mint Act of 1792. This act created our monetary system for which the dollar is the basic unit. Minting the 1794 dollar was part of the beginning of our national coinage, and it was an assertion of our independence as well.