The most interesting field in American numismatics is, in my humble opinion, the broad spectrum of proposed designs, experimental alloys and finished or unfinished die trial pieces collectively known as Patterns. Some of these pieces are much more beautiful than the predictably uninspired work the U.S. Mint is producing today, while others recollect bold new ideas of form and function that a timid Treasury was afraid to adopt for fear of change and the reaction to it.

Just yesterday I held a specimen of an 1877 pattern half dollar in silver, Judd-1528, with a crested helmet that rivals in beauty the Athenian “new style” tetradrachms of two millennia before, brought up to date with a defiant American eagle engraved upon the side of the helmet. The reverse of the piece bears a Heraldic Eagle design as traditional as that of the $2-1/2 gold piece of 1796 and as up to date as the American Eagle silver dollar currently being produced.

Some people consider the first U.S. pattern to be the 1776 Continental Dollar struck in silver and/or in brass, the pewter version being the regular issue for the denomination. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure what metal the Continental Congress actually intended to be the ultimate composition of this first U.S. dollar coin, and so many pattern specialists refuse to recognize any version of it as an actual trial piece.

The 1783 Nova Constellatio patterns engraved by Benjamin Dudley for Gouverneur Morris, assistant to the Superintendent of Finance for the American Confederation Robert Morris, have an equally valid claim to the title of the first U.S. patterns. Though the silver 1000, 500 and 100 units pieces and the unique copper 5 units coin were never authorized by the Continental Congress, Dudley had been placed on the government payroll to prepare a Mint in Philadelphia and is believed to have been paid for preparing the pattern dies. (more…)