Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/617

Rh approved of the device, and suggested the substitution of the head of Liberty. Since that time no American coin has ever displayed the head of any individual.

—An exceedingly interesting, curious, and indeed inexplicable feature of the early history of coinage of money in America, regarding which there is but little accurate information available at the present day, is the issuing, on a large scale, of gold, silver, and copper coins (also "tokens") by private individuals and by trading companies. It will surprise many, no doubt, to learn the extent to which this practice was carried, and that it was permitted to exist until a comparatively recent period, notwithstanding the express prohibition in the Constitution of all such acts.

In a report made to Congress by the director of the Mint (Dr. Patterson) in 1840, these words may be found:

"Coinage of gold and silver, though withheld from the State, is freely permitted by individuals."

In 1850 the assayers of the Mint (Eckfeldt and Du Bois) reported: "There are several classes of gold coins which are struck within the national boundaries, but are not of the United States; these are Bechtler's coins of North Carolina and the California coins."

In 1851 the assayers reported that twenty-seven different kinds of gold coins, issued from fifteen private mints, had been received and assayed at the United States Mint in Philadelphia.

The earliest private coinage intended for use in the colonies of America (except the Bermuda "hog" coins) is known to numismatists under the general name "Rosa Americana," and the story