1776 Machin’s Mills Copper Halfpenny PCGS F-15

Two hundred fifty years after the Declaration, the date 1776 carries a charge that no other four digits in American numismatics can match — and the semiquincentennial has brought collectors to the realization that coins actually bearing that date are very nearly unobtainable. The Continental Dollar, long the emblematic issue of the year, has been convincingly reattributed as a European medal struck around 1783. The New Hampshire coppers are of legendary rarity; the last sold at public auction by Stacks Bowers in 2012 and realized $172,500. What remains for the collector who wants 1776 in hand is this: the imitation halfpence of Atlee and Mould, struck at Machin's Mills in New York.

Because no regal English halfpenny of 1776 exists, these pieces cannot properly be called counterfeits — there was nothing to counterfeit. They are imitations, made around 1785 for the American channels of commerce, and circulate they did. Most survivors are worn nearly smooth, softly struck to begin with, and carry the honest surfaces of ground exposure. That is precisely the point. This is not a coin that sat in a cabinet while the Revolution passed by; it is a coin that passed hand to hand through the young republic, wearing its date like a banner. In an anniversary year, few objects speak so directly.