Nova Constellatio
The Nova Constellatio coins are the first coins struck under the authority of the United States. These pattern coins were struck in early 1783, and are known in three silver denominations (1,000-Units, 500-Units, 100-Units), and one copper denomination (5-Units). All known examples bear the legend "NOVA CONSTELLATIO" with the exception of a unique silver 500-Unit piece. History The Nova Constellatio patterns were the culmination of two years of work on the part of Robert Morris, the Founding Father credited with financing the Revolutionary War. Morris was unanimously elected the Nation’s first Superintendent of Finance in 1781; on February 21 of the following year, Congress passed the following resolution: :''That Congress approve of the establishment of a mint; and, that the Superintendent of finance be, and hereby is directed to prepare and report to Congress a plan for establishing and conducting the same.'' The financier’s plan, developed with his assistant, Gouvern ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pattern Coin
A pattern coin is a coin which has not been approved for release, but produced to evaluate a proposed coin design. They are often off-metal strike (using metals of lower value to test out the dies), to proof standard or piedforts. Many coin collectors collect and study pattern coins because of their historical importance. Many of the world's most valuable coins are pattern coins; nearly 25 of the pieces listed in ''100 Greatest US Coins'' are pattern coins. English patterns The first English coin that can be identified with certainty is a groat, originally worth fourpence. This piece, an example of which was illustrated and sold in the Dodsley Cuff sale of the mid-19th century, had crowns in place of the usual three pellets in each quarter of the reverse. Patterns are particularly identifiable and exist in larger numbers from the reign of Elizabeth I onwards. The experimental base metal issues of all coinage prior to the mid-18th century have been well preserved. Boulton's ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Morris (financier)
Robert Morris Jr. (January 20, 1734May 8, 1806) was an English-born American merchant, investor and politician who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, the Second Continental Congress, and the United States Senate, and was one of only two people to sign the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States, U.S Constitution; the other being Roger Sherman. From 1781 to 1784, he served as the Superintendent of Finance of the United States, becoming known as the "Financier of the Revolution." Along with Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, he is widely regarded as one of the founders of the financial system of the United States. Born in Liverpool, Morris was brought to North America by his father when he was 13 years old, quickly becoming a partner in a successful shipping firm based in Philadelphia. In the afterma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army during the American Revolutionary War, British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war. However, Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war in the Treaty of Paris (1783), Treaty of Paris two years later, in 1783, in which the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Superintendent Of Finance Of The United States
Superintendent of Finance of the United States was the head of Department of Finance, which is an executive office during the Confederation period with power similar to a finance ministry. The only person to hold the office was Robert Morris, who served from 1781 to 1784, with the assistance of Gouverneur Morris. Background Various boards and committees were formed from June 3, 1775, on to handle financial matters for the provisional government of the United States, the Continental Congress. But, as early as 1776, dissatisfaction with this system led Robert Morris, in a message to a Committee of Secret Correspondence, to argue for the use of executives. Congress was open to other methods of finance administration. In late 1778 after the Franco-American alliance formed, a congressional appeal to Welsh finance writer Dr. Richard Price was made for him to come and reorganize their finances, which he declined. In early 1779, Congress requested that their European agents look into me ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a series of legislature, legislative bodies, with some executive function, for the Thirteen Colonies of British America, Great Britain in North America, and the newly declared United States before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress refers to both the First Continental Congress, First and Second Continental Congress, Second Congresses of 1774–1781 and at the time, also described the Congress of the Confederation of 1781–1789. The Confederation Congress operated as the first federal government until being replaced following ratification of the Constitution of the United States, U.S. Constitution. Until 1785, the Congress met predominantly at what is today Independence Hall in Philadelphia, though it was relocated temporarily on several occasions during the Revolutionary War and the Philadelphia campaign, fall of Philadelphia. The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1774 in response to esc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris ( ; January 31, 1752 – November 6, 1816) was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. He wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution and has been called the "Penman of the Constitution". While most Americans still thought of themselves as citizens of their respective states, Morris advanced the idea of being a citizen of a single union of states. He was also one of the most outspoken opponents of slavery among those who were present at the Constitutional Congress. He represented New York in the United States Senate from 1800 to 1803. Morris was born into a wealthy landowning family in what is now New York City. After attending King's College (now Columbia University) he studied law under Judge William Smith and earned admission to the bar. He was elected to the New York Provincial Congress before serving in the Continental Congress. After ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Decimal Coinage
Decimalisation or decimalization (see spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by powers of 10. Most countries have decimalised their currencies, converting them from non-decimal sub-units to a decimal system, with one basic currency unit and sub-units that are valued relative to the basic unit by a power of 10, most commonly 100 and exceptionally 1000, and sometimes at the same time, changing the name of the currency and/or the conversion rate to the new currency. Today, only two countries have ''de jure'' non-decimal currencies, these being Mauritania (where 1 ouguiya = 5 khoums) and Madagascar (where 1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja): however, these currencies are ''de facto'' decimal as the value of both currencies' main unit is now so low that the sub-units are too small to be of any practical use, and coins of these sub-units are no longer used. Russia was the first country to convert to a decimal currency w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 during the Presidency of George Washington, presidency of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Born out of wedlock in Charlestown, Nevis, Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant. He was given a scholarship and pursued his education at Columbia College, Columbia University, King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City where, despite his young age, he was an anonymous but prolific and widely read pamphleteer and advocate for the American Revolution. He then served as an artillery officer in the American Revolutionary War, where he saw military action against the British Army during the American Revolutionary War, British Army in the New York and New Jersey campaign, served for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was the nation's first United States Secretary of State, U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president of the United States, vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and Natural law, natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class, dependent on slavery in the colonial history of the United States, slave labor. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dollar
Dollar is the name of more than 25 currencies. The United States dollar, named after the international currency known as the Spanish dollar, was established in 1792 and is the first so named that still survives. Others include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Eastern Caribbean dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, Trinidad and Tobago Dollar, and several others. The symbol for most of those currencies is the dollar sign $; the same symbol is used by many countries using peso currencies. The name "dollar" originates from the "thaler" which was the name of a 29 g silver coin called the Joachimsthaler minted in Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Bohemia, the western part of Czech Kingdom (now the Czech Republic). The word itself comes from the word ''thal'', German for valley. Economies that use a "dollar" Other countries that use the "United States dollar" Other t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David J
David John Haskins (born 24 April 1957, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England), better known as David J, is a British alternative rock musician, producer, and writer. He is the bassist for the gothic rock band Bauhaus (band), Bauhaus and for Love and Rockets (band), Love and Rockets. He has composed the scores for a number of plays and films, and also wrote and directed his own plays, ''Silver for Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick)'', in 2008, which was restaged at REDCAT in Los Angeles in 2011, and ''The Chanteuse and The Devil's Muse'' in 2011. His artwork has been shown in galleries internationally, and he has been a resident DJ at venues such as the Knitting Factory. David J has released a number of singles and solo albums, and in 1990 he released one of the first No. 1 hits on the then nascent Modern Rock Tracks charts, with "I'll Be Your Chauffeur". His most recent single, "The Day That David Bowie Died" entered the UK vinyl singles chart at number 4 in 2016. The trac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |