WASHINGTON – As long as there’s been money, there have been counterfeiters. An exhibit at the National Museum of American History reinforces that axiom.
The oldest piece of U.S. currency in the display is a 1690 2-shilling bill from Massachusetts. A counterfeiter good with a pen changed its value to 20 shillings.
The exhibit of rare, historic and beautiful currency opens Friday at the Smithsonian Castle, the original 150-year-old home of the Smithsonian Institution. There are 56 coins, bills and medals in all, a tiny slice of the more than 1.5 million in the museum’s collection.
Specialists in coins much admire a $20 gold piece designed by one of the most famous American sculptors of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The goddess Liberty is on one side, torch and olive branch in hand, and a flying eagle on the other. President Theodore Roosevelt, impressed by a medal Saint-Gaudens made for his inauguration, urged him to try doing coins. The medal is on show, too.
For comparison, Richard Doty, the museum’s senior curator of numismatics, has included in the exhibit an ancient Greek coin in high relief struck about 400 B.C.
The display also includes a portrait medal of James Smithson, who bequeathed his fortune of 104,960 British gold sovereigns to the United States for the advancement of knowledge. It was the founding bequest of the Smithsonian Institution.
The sovereigns were quickly melted down and turned into $5 U.S. gold pieces, Doty said, because Britain and the United States seemed to be on the verge of war as a result of an incident on the Canadian border. It was considered a good idea to get rid of Queen Victoria’s image on them. One of the sovereigns that escaped the melting pot is in the exhibit.
Other coins are included for their rarity, such as the 1913 Buffalo head nickel.
Doty’s own favorites are among the unusual examples of paper currency. These were issued by states, the federal government, the Confederacy and by the 8,000 banks that were authorized to do so at one time or another before the Civil War. During the war, both the federal government and the Confederate States of America started the printing presses.
When President Lincoln was shot a few days after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender, one of the confederate notes was found in his wallet, apparently a souvenir. The museum has acquired it from the family and often puts it on show, though it is not in this exhibit.
Some of the Civil War currency was printed on good quality rag paper, and the exhibit includes torn notes that were sewn together. Other bills, especially those produced by the Confederacy, were on poorer quality paper and were pinned together. Still others were preserved by being stuck together with postage stamps, or pasted on other paper, including personal letters.
“Legendary Coins and Currency’ will be on display through Sept. 10. Admission is free.
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