JOURNAL OF EARLY AMERICAN NUMISMATICS V6N2

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 8, February 25, 2024, Article 9

The latest issue of JEAN, the Journal of Early American Numismatics has been published by the American Numismatic Society. Here is the table of contents and an excerpt from the Editor's Preface by Christopher R. McDowell. The image on the cover is of a proposed South Carolina coinage that was to be struck at the Soho Mint. -Editor

The Story of South Carolina's Ill-Fated Coinage and the Soho Mint's Involvement in America's Early Coins
CHRISTOPHER R. MCDOWELL

Eighteenth-Century Provisional Copper Coins and Paper Money in Cuba and Puerto Rico
ANGEL 0. NAVARRO ZAYAS

Discovery of Fractional Paper Money in Use in Puerto Rico at the End of the Eighteenth Century
ANGEL 0. NAVARRO ZAYAS

1652 Willow Tree Coinage Census
MARK BORCKARDT, JULIA CASEY, JESSE KRAFT, CHRISTOPHER MCDOWELL, JEFF ROCK, CHRISTOPHER J. SALMON

I keep saying "Wow!" every time I see the contents of a new issue. Looking forward to my issue! -Editor

This year's World's Fair of Money in Pittsburgh was a milestone for the Journal of Early American Numismatics. Either directly or indirectly, JEAN or members of our editorial committee received five Numismatic Literary Guild Awards, including the Best Club/Non-Profit Periodical award. This is the second time in four years that JEAN has received this coveted award. Our success is due entirely to the quality of articles we attract and our editorial committee's hard work and diligence. JEAN's staff is comprised entirely of volunteer experts in various fields of early American numismatics, working together as a team to bring our subscribers each issue.

Two of 2022's top articles appeared in JEAN. Julia Casey received the Best Column or Article: Numismatic History or Personalities for her monograph appearing in JEAN 5:1 (June 2022) titled Benjamin Dudley: Maker of the Nova Constellatio Patterns. Another editorial committee member, Dr. Jesse Kraft, received the prestigious James L Miller Award for the Article or Story of the Year for The ‘Wild Scheme' of Sydney P. Noe: The 1942 Exhibition of Massachusetts Bay Silver Coinage at the American Numismatic Society, which appeared in JEAN 5:2 (Dec. 2022). This is the top award an author can receive for a numismatic article, and it is an award that has been bestowed on multiple JEAN authors in recent years. Julia's and Jesse's awards are open to articles on any numismatic topic, not just articles on colonial numismatics. If you did not read one of these articles, do yourself a favor and go back and do so now.

Over the past five years, almost every top numismatic literary award has gone to an article dealing with American colonial numismatics. We are living in the Golden Age of colonial numismatics. In my decidedly biased and undeniably accurate opinion, the most boisterous and convivial group in all numismatics are those involved in colonial coins, medals, and paper money.

Christopher McDowell, Julia Casey, Neil Musante, and Jesse Kraft hold their plaques at the ANA convention in Pittsburgh.

In addition to the above, the Best Book: Token and Medals went to The Early Betts Medal Companion: Medals of America's Discovery and Colonization (1492-1737), written by Ye Editor and published by ANS, and the Best Column or Article: U.S. Paper Money was received by Neil Musante for his article on early bank note engraving that appeared in the ANS Magazine in 2023 titled Vitriolic acid, geometry, and the early technology of bank note engraving. As well as being a crackerjack numismatic whiz kid and star of stage and screen, Neil is a good friend, and his two-volume series on Medallic Washington will be the standard reference on George Washington medals for generations to come. Neil has all the attributes we look for in a JEAN editor: deep numismatic knowledge honed over decades of working in the trenches at coin shows, a strong background in award-winning numismatic writing, plus design and editorial experience. With this in mind, I asked Neil to join JEAN's editorial team, and he accepted. I am thrilled by this prospect—if for no other reason than because, on top of all his other attributes, Neil is the most gracious and fun to work with person in numismatics.

Since most of you read this preface to see a summary of the issue's contents, I will cut short the celebratory preliminaries and get down to brass tacks. This issue of JEAN is a diamond in the rough, as each article is a gem to be mined by those readers who are high-level, serious researchers and scholars of numismatics. Herein is solid primary research material that will be widely sought after in the years to come. If I were to put one issue in a time capsule to be read by future generations of numismatic collectors and scholars, this would be it. I am confident that the material contained within these pages will be as valuable one hundred years from now as it is today.

Ye Editor and Julia Casey have gained full access to a treasure trove of original colonial numismatic documentation at the Birmingham Library, namely Matthew Boulton's correspondence, private handwritten notes on coining, and the overall records of the Soho mint. These records have been known to numismatists for a long time. However, the depths of these papers have yet to be fully plumbed from an American perspective. Over JEAN's next few issues, we will bring this information to our readers in various formats, including verbatim transcripts and monographs.

Matthew Boulton was the central figure of numismatics for decades. He would eventually come to dominate the global coining industry, crushing his competitors at home and abroad and putting many counterfeiters out of business. Boulton, along with his partner, James Watt, applied steam engine technology to the coin press, ushering in the Industrial Revolution. He also transformed die production and the coin-making process. Boulton closely monitored events in America, hoping to one day nab the fabled American federal coining contract should the opportunity ever present itself. To this end, he regularly corresponded with many influential and aspiring American minters. Thus, his private correspondence provides excellent insights into not only pre-industrial and early-industrial English coining but also American colonial numismatics. We are excited to begin this journey of exploration with two articles in this issue.

A year ago, in JEAN 5:2 (Dec. 2022), we brought you the catalogue raisonné for the 1652 New England NE Coinage. That was a dry run for our larger and more comprehensive Willow Tree project that appears in this issue. Over a year in the making, the greatest numismatic minds in Massachusetts silver have banded together to bring you this monograph. From first-hand knowledge, I can attest that no stone or numismatic collection has been left undisturbed in the quest to find and document every solitary Willow Tree coin. I believe this Massachusetts silver coinage project is the most significant undertaking in colonial numismatics. When they crack open the time capsule, this article will attract the most attention. Publication of material like the Boulton papers and the Willow Tree census is why JEAN exists. If it were not for JEAN, these critical works would not have a home and remain the intellectual property of a few individuals. Most of us will never own a Willow Tree coin. Nonetheless, I strongly encourage you to read this article. Please be aware that we are not stopping here; next year, we hope to publish an even more ambitious census on the Oak Tree coinage, eventually capping everything off with a Pine Tree coinage census.

As I teased in my last Editor's Preface, this issue presents something new on the ever-popular Continental dollar topic. Dr. Jesse Kraft has been hiking across Europe, searching for the smoking gun that will put to rest all questions pertaining to the Continental dollar. He returned with a mysteriously nice suntan, a longer but well-trimmed beard, and an incredible story for our readers on Elie Gervais, a man perhaps better known by his initials EG. Scholarship and writing like this can only be found on these pages. Slowly, the tumblers click into place one by one, and the door behind which rests all the answers to the Continental dollar is about to spring open.

Our final offerings come from our dear friend Ángel Navarro Zayas, the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe (the Center of Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean). Once again, we are indebted to Ángel for bringing us articles related to Caribbean topics. Large or small, the Caribbean islands were often more valuable to Spain, France, and England than all of Canada and the American colonies. The riches from these islands filled the coffers of Europe. Naturally, the numismatic past of this region is diverse, rich, and essential to our study of American coins and medals. As the corpus of Ángel's work continues to build and develop, we hope he will continue to bless us with these offerings.

In closing, I want to thank you, our subscribers, without whom this past year of numismatic excellence would not have been possible. I also want to congratulate Julia, Neil, and Jesse on receiving their NLG awards and thank the entire team of JEAN editors for their contributions. Finally, I want to thank Andrew Reinhard for his many years of support and hard work as the publisher of the Colonial Newsletter (CNL) and JEAN. When I took over CNL, it was on death's door—days, if not hours, from being discontinued. Andrew worked tirelessly with me to revive and improve it into the superior publication you hold in your hands. Andrew had faith in the potential of this publication and in a neophyte Appalachian editor, for which I shall be forever grateful. I wish him the very best in all his future endeavors. And I wish all of you a Happy and healthy New Year.