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1792 Columbian Centinel - April 21,1792. The news s

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:625.00 USD Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,000.00 USD
1792 Columbian Centinel - April 21,1792. The news s
<B>1792 Columbian Centinel--April 21,1792.</B></I> <BR><BR>The news story that started it all: a front page contemporary publication of the Coinage Act as passed by the U.S. Congress on April 2, 1792, appearing in the</B></I> <I>Columbian Centinel</B></I> (Boston: Benjamin Russell) dated April 21, 1792. "An ACT establishing a MINT, and regulating the Coins of the United States" is the title appearing under the header "LAWS of the UNITED STATES, Published By Authority." This landmark piece of forward-thinking legislation called for a decimal monetary system based on the dollar as the "money of account," a system that we still use today. It also authorized the creation of the Philadelphia Mint in order to manufacture the coins that many of us so actively collect.<BR><BR> One has to wonder what ran through the minds of the few hundred subscribers reading this for the first time that Saturday so long ago. Our young nation had only recently achieved its independence from Great Britain and had been content to continue to use British currency, as well as a variety of other currencies from other foreign countries such as Spain, Portugal, Germany, and France. Trade was also accomplished via local and state-produced coins and currency, not to mention Indian wampum, crops, and livestock. Even though the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) granted the power to coin money, many were leery of allowing the federal government control over the monetary system. The lack of standardization in this new nation's currency, however, was holding it back in international trade and slowing its economic growth. Founding fathers Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton led the campaign to set up a national Mint and a standardized monetary system. Jefferson headed the fight on a decimal-based system, quite unlike the then-familiar British "pounds-shillings-pence" standard. He felt that a mint