As we make our way through the summer of 2020, United States citizens continue to practice safe distancing, and businesses are slowly reopening and operating under new safety protocols and measures, in response to the COVID–19 pandemic that has brought many important matters to a standstill. Ironically, coin collecting was once in this same situation, though not because of a disease or some other disastrous event.
Prior to 1833 the fi rst Philadelphia Mint was a source of coins fro collectors. Adapted from an 1854 photo.
There were collectors, in what is now the United States, before 1776, but they were very few and far between. As far as is known, however, actual collecting did not begin until 1793, with the Philadelphia Mint’s fi rst issues. Only copper cents and half cents were struck in that year, and there is little doubt that interested citizens laid aside nice examples of this fi rst regular coinage.