1783 NOVA CONSTELLATIO! HAPPY NEW YEAR

[jangrok]

Happy New Year all. I haven't been this active on this site in years, but I love sharing here because nobody understands the emotional and historical value of these relics we save from the ground like metal detectorists do. sure family and friends think this stuff is cool, because we think its cool, but unless you have the addictio....I mean passion for metal detecting, they just don't quite understand. I've posted in the last week about KG2's, large cents, half cents, cut coppers, and buttons. well new years eve my buddy and I went out to my field of dreams where I found 2 large cents, a half cent, and cut copper before and between my buddy and I we pulled 14 buttons, ranging from 1700s dandies to 1800s. and he pulled a colonial shoe buckle frame. now my new years eve was amazing with a haul like that. well I woke up this morning and before I went to my brothers for his birthday, I decided that I needed to get on the board for the first day of 2024, I just needed a button to keep my luck running into the new year. superstitious much? a button is what I found, 2 actually. good enough for me, time to head back to the car, of course swinging the whole way. I get halfway across the field and get a nice 91 on the deus2. not scratchy this time. and I thought "I should live dig this, I'm 99% sure its a large cent" I decide not to, so I dig the plug, then start the video. I break the plug open and say yup, it's a large cent, but once I look closer, it's way too thin, so it must be a really well made dandy button. I wipe some dirt off and see some "rays" of light, and I think sweet! this button has a design! I wipe a little more and see some lettering around the edges....uh oh.... buttons normally don't have writing on the front. I stop in my tracks. no more cleaning, no more wiping, in the finds box it goes, and off to the house I go. I get home and wait for the dirt to dry. slowly I remove each dry layer of dirt. I can see "ELLATIO" then the 13 stars in between the rays appear, I flip it over and the wreath appears with "LIBERTAS" visible on the right side and a 1783 just barely readable. its a NOVA and I love it. I've tried to do research on this coin and get conflicting information online. some say the US government struck it, some say they came from Birmingham England, some sources say they were never legal tender and ordered as tokens. does anybody have a solid history on these nova's? TYIA! happy new year!

 

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[l.cutler]

No, nobody knows for sure. I've collected colonial and pre-federal coins for 40 years and that is one of the things that makes them so fascinating! There were no records for many of the issues, the Nova Constellatios included. All we really have are a few newspaper accounts of the coins and the coins themselves. They were modeled after some US made pattern pieces but no-one knows for sure who made them or where they were made. The traditional and long held belief is that they were made in England by a private company. More recently some have begun questioning this, there is some die linkage to some of the US made coppers but nothing concrete.

 

[Digger RJ]

Happy New Year all. I haven't been this active on this site in years, but I love sharing here because nobody understands the emotional and historical value of these relics we save from the ground like metal detectorists do. sure family and friends think this stuff is cool, because we think its cool, but unless you have the addictio....I mean passion for metal detecting, they just don't quite understand. I've posted in the last week about KG2's, large cents, half cents, cut coppers, and buttons. well new years eve my buddy and I went out to my field of dreams where I found 2 large cents, a half cent, and cut copper before and between my buddy and I we pulled 14 buttons, ranging from 1700s dandies to 1800s. and he pulled a colonial shoe buckle frame. now my new years eve was amazing with a haul like that. well I woke up this morning and before I went to my brothers for his birthday, I decided that I needed to get on the board for the first day of 2024, I just needed a button to keep my luck running into the new year. superstitious much? a button is what I found, 2 actually. good enough for me, time to head back to the car, of course swinging the whole way. I get halfway across the field and get a nice 91 on the deus2. not scratchy this time. and I thought "I should live dig this, I'm 99% sure its a large cent" I decide not to, so I dig the plug, then start the video. I break the plug open and say yup, it's a large cent, but once I look closer, it's way too thin, so it must be a really well made dandy button. I wipe some dirt off and see some "rays" of light, and I think sweet! this button has a design! I wipe a little more and see some lettering around the edges....uh oh.... buttons normally don't have writing on the front. I stop in my tracks. no more cleaning, no more wiping, in the finds box it goes, and off to the house I go. I get home and wait for the dirt to dry. slowly I remove each dry layer of dirt. I can see "ELLATIO" then the 13 stars in between the rays appear, I flip it over and the wreath appears with "LIBERTAS" visible on the right side and a 1783 just barely readable. its a NOVA and I love it. I've tried to do research on this coin and get conflicting information online. some say the US government struck it, some say they came from Birmingham England, some sources say they were never legal tender and ordered as tokens. does anybody have a solid history on these nova's? TYIA! happy new year!

Very Cool!!! Congrats!!!

 

[pepperj]

No, nobody knows for sure. I've collected colonial and pre-federal coins for 40 years and that is one of the things that makes them so fascinating! There were no records for many of the issues, the Nova Constellatios included. All we really have are a few newspaper accounts of the coins and the coins themselves. They were modeled after some US made pattern pieces but no-one knows for sure who made them or where they were made. The traditional and long held belief is that they were made in England by a private company. More recently some have begun questioning this, there is some die linkage to some of the US made coppers but nothing concrete.

I wonder if there has been any XRF Analyzer testing done on the coinage comparing it to the coinage that was done in Britain from the same period?

The XRF instruments can measure the elemental composition in parts per million to 100% accuracy.

It would certainly tell if the composition of the coinage was from the same place or mint.

 

[Almy]

Great find, and thank you for the interesting narrative about finding it! Yes, we MDers can really understand your feelings and motivation. And in a post like this, we who are sitting in our easy chairs at the moment because the ground is frozen, can still enjoy it.

 

[JohnnyMac]

Happy New Year all. I haven't been this active on this site in years, but I love sharing here because nobody understands the emotional and historical value of these relics we save from the ground like metal detectorists do. sure family and friends think this stuff is cool, because we think its cool, but unless you have the addictio....I mean passion for metal detecting, they just don't quite understand. I've posted in the last week about KG2's, large cents, half cents, cut coppers, and buttons. well new years eve my buddy and I went out to my field of dreams where I found 2 large cents, a half cent, and cut copper before and between my buddy and I we pulled 14 buttons, ranging from 1700s dandies to 1800s. and he pulled a colonial shoe buckle frame. now my new years eve was amazing with a haul like that. well I woke up this morning and before I went to my brothers for his birthday, I decided that I needed to get on the board for the first day of 2024, I just needed a button to keep my luck running into the new year. superstitious much? a button is what I found, 2 actually. good enough for me, time to head back to the car, of course swinging the whole way. I get halfway across the field and get a nice 91 on the deus2. not scratchy this time. and I thought "I should live dig this, I'm 99% sure its a large cent" I decide not to, so I dig the plug, then start the video. I break the plug open and say yup, it's a large cent, but once I look closer, it's way too thin, so it must be a really well made dandy button. I wipe some dirt off and see some "rays" of light, and I think sweet! this button has a design! I wipe a little more and see some lettering around the edges....uh oh.... buttons normally don't have writing on the front. I stop in my tracks. no more cleaning, no more wiping, in the finds box it goes, and off to the house I go. I get home and wait for the dirt to dry. slowly I remove each dry layer of dirt. I can see "ELLATIO" then the 13 stars in between the rays appear, I flip it over and the wreath appears with "LIBERTAS" visible on the right side and a 1783 just barely readable. its a NOVA and I love it. I've tried to do research on this coin and get conflicting information online. some say the US government struck it, some say they came from Birmingham England, some sources say they were never legal tender and ordered as tokens. does anybody have a solid history on these nova's? TYIA! happy new year!

Congrats on a great coin!!

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

A rare find - congrats !

 

[l.cutler]

I wonder if there has been any XRF Analyzer testing done on the coinage comparing it to the coinage that was done in Britain from the same period?

The XRF instruments can measure the elemental composition in parts per million to 100% accuracy.

It would certainly tell if the composition of the coinage was from the same place or mint.

I need to dig through my resource material and see what I can find out. One problem though, the British token manufacturers also sold planchets, and US makers very well may have used British copper.

 

[ARC]

Stellar find... a banner for sure ... super well done.

Some here may enjoy this article on the Nova's...

https://www.money.org/uploads/pdfs/Nova.pdf