James Falconer Atlee and Confederation Era Coppers

The Atlee "Broken A" Hypothesis

In the past few years several long held assumptions concerning the role of James F. Atlee in the production of confederation era coppers have been seriously questioned. What may be called the Atlee hypothesis was first formulated by Sylvester Crosby in his seminal 1875 study, The Early Coins of America. While studying the legends on confederation era coppers Crosby noted some of the letters were not properly formed. In examining New Jersey coppers he discovered the letter A was sometimes broken in that the left upright stroke was slightly shorter than the right stroke so that it did not extend to the top of the letter. He also noticed a problem with the letter N, near the center of the diagonal cross stroke there was a small notch on the underneath edge of the diagonal. Additionally, Crosby noticed the foot or serif of the letter P was sometimes missing its left side.

Crosby took these specific errors as proof there was a diecutter who had a set of punches with defective letters. Further, he discovered these same errors on some coppers from other areas. Crosby stated he had noticed, "the letters A and N precisely as before described, upon many of the Vermont dies, and on some of those attributed to Connecticut." He also observed similar letters on George III imitation halfpence. Crosby believed the letter punches that contained these specific broken letter errors were part of a unique set owned by a single diemaker and so he concluded, "We therefore consider it certain that many of the dies of New Jersey and Vermont, and some of the AUCTORI CONNEC, (as well as some others yet to be treated of,) were the work of the same artist;"

The identity of this diecutter was based on information Crosby had been supplied by Charles Bushnell. Around the mid 1850's, about sixty five years after the confederation era mints had closed, Bushnell attempted to research the history of these mints. He searched for documents and sent several letters of inquiry to individuals in the various towns were the mint had been located, compiling the recollections of older inhabitants who remembered the mints in operation during their youth. He also searched out the families of those associated with the mints to record any information that may have been passed down about the individuals or the operations. Much of this information was shared with Crosby who published many of Bushnell's letters in his book. In a letter from Bushnell relating information on the Machin's Mills mint of Newburgh, New York, quoted in Crosby, Bushnell stated, "The coins were made by James F. Atlee." Crosby knew this was the site where the imitation halfpence had been produced and he had also seen the same letter errors on those halfpence. Therefore Crosby concluded James Atlee was the diemaker who owned the specific broken letter punches he had identified.

For the next century most numismatists assumed any confederation era copper exhibiting these broken letters in the legend was from a die cut by James Atlee. The broken A became the key letter as its defect was more easily spotted; almost nothing was said about the less easily detected N and P defects. In 1958 Eric Newman commented on the Machin's Mills coining partnership agreement (called an indenture), for which James and Samuel Atlee were two of the six partners. Among the stipulations of the agreement was the following: "And the said Samuel Atlee, and James F. Atlee being possessed of certain implements for carrying on said trade, do agree to lend them to the parties..." Newman suspected the implements referred to may have been punches for imitation British halfpence. Acceptance of this interpretation of the cryptic phrase in the indenture further supported the theory Atlee owned his own set of punches. In 1964 Everett Sipsey questioned if Atlee was a die engraver at all, as there was no record referring to Atlee as being in any occupation where one would learn diecutting, such as silversmithing. This suggestion went against the current opinion and was not followed up. By 1988 Walter Breen, in his Encyclopedia, as well as in his studies on Vermont and Connecticut coppers, attributed all confederation era coppers exhibiting a broken A to Atlee. James Atlee was considered to be a master diemaker responsible for the dies for several varieties of legal Vermont and New Jersey coppers as well as being responsible for the dies for some private coppers and for the dies for some illegal Connecticut coppers and almost all identifiable American made imitation British halfpence.

The Atlee "Broken A" Hypothesis Unravelled

In 1991 Michael Hodder investigated the 1787 "IMMUNIS COLUMBIA" copper. As this was one of the varieties exhibiting a broken A in the legend, the dies for this variety had been attributed to James Atlee. Therefore, as part of his attempt to explain the attribution and dating of this coin Hodder examined the Atlee thesis. He compared the broken A on some different varieties, namely: the Immunis Columbia copper, the 1787 New Jersey Maris 68-w, the 1787 Connecticut Miller 1.1-A and the 1787 Vermont Ryder 12. He found the shape of the broken A on the Immunis Columbia and the New Jersey copper to be similar but in comparing the Immunis to the Connecticut and Vermont coppers he discovered the broken A's didn't match; they were broken in the same general area but not exactly in the same spot. One page in his article consisted of three enlarged details of the broken A's from the Immunis, Connecticut and Vermont coins with the comment, "It is apparent that while there are superficial, naked eye, similarities among these three when seen life-size, when enlarged these resolve into dissimilarities." He went on to state it appeared there was more than one broken A letter punch. He suggested there had been a defect in the matrix from which several A punches had been produced. This suggestion unravelled the thesis of the unique broken A letter punch, as now it seemed several diemakers may have had broken A punches!

Peter Gaspar's recent work on early British minting procedures has supported some of Hodder's suggestions. Previously it had been thought most Eighteenth century diemakers made their own punches. Gaspar has shown that in England quantities of steel letter punch sets were being produced from a single matrix since the mid Eighteenth century. There is also evidence some American diemakers purchased their letter punches from England rather than making them. Diemakers still needed to make their own central device punches, as those images were usually unique, but standard letter punches could be purchased. Thus, it appears one can no longer assume a letter on a coin that exhibits a punch error is from a unique punch held only by a single diemaker. To further complicate the situation, when a coining operation was sold or went out of business or when a diemaker retired, went bankrupt or died, his punches (or the mint's punches) would be sold or inherited. Additionally, some silversmiths, such as Abel Buell, made punches to be sold to others. Thus punch errors may not be as helpful in attribution as they have been thought to be.

Further, John Lorenzo has recently made a detailed investigation of several varieties of coppers exhibiting the broken A. In this study he pointed out several additional problems with letter punch evidence that had not been previously considered. A letter (or number) punch looks and acts like a chisel, except that instead of having a bevelled chisel point the end contains raised lines of metal in the shape of the desired letter. When this exceptionally hard punch is hit into a metal die it forms a sunken or incuse letter in the die. On some punches the raised lines forming the letter might have a small hole or nick on the outer surface. If the nick was not too deep, say only going a third or half way into the depth of the raised line several possibilities could occur when the punch was hit into the die. If the blow was somewhat light the punch may not sink very deeply into the die leaving only a shallow impression. In this event the nicked area of the punch could produce a broken letter in the die and consequently on the coins made from that die. However, if the blow was rather heavy it might impress the punch further into the die, possibly sinking it below the area of the nick, so that the letter in the die would be whole and complete and thus coins made from that die would have unbroken letters. Thus, the same punch could produce full letters on some occasions and broken letters on other occasions. Also, if an intermediate force was used the die may be impressed slightly further down into the die than it would be with a lighter blow so that, if the nicked area was V shaped rather than a square gouge, it may produce a slightly reduced broken space in the letter than would be produced with a lighter blow from the same punch!

Additionally, when striking the punch into the die, if the blow was not precisely centered it could make one side of the letter somewhat deeper than the other, giving the letter and especially the serifs, an unusual or different appearance. Added to this is the complication of punches wearing down through use, so that the nicks or breaks to the letters grow deeper or longer, hence the same punch could produce a slightly different letter as it worn down.

Of course, we do not have the colonial punches or dies so we can only read this evidence from the images that exist on surviving coins. This produces a further complication. Confederation era coppers were minted on manually controlled presses without the use of retaining collars. This meant if a blank planchet was put between the dies and struck with excessive force the metal would flatten out slightly more than usual, causing some distortion to the letters around the rim. The serifs on those letters would tend to turn upward slightly and the denticle border would be elongated. This process was first described by Kenneth Bressett as bifurcation. Therefore letters from the same die could look different on two different coins depending on the force used to strike that particular coin. Thus, Lorenzo cautioned the use of letter punch evidence has several pitfalls and should not be used alone to make an attribution but rather must be used in conjunction with other diagnostic evidence (weight, planchet diameter, die state, etc.).

With the exception of the imitation British halfpence Lorenzo studied several varieties of the basic issues with the broken A, namely: the IMMUNIS COLUMBIA; New Jersey, Maris obverse numbers 3, 13, 15, 18, 23, 26, 28, 32, 41, 42, 52, 68 and 69; Connecticut 1786 Miller, 1-A, 2.1-A, 2.1-D, 2.2-D, 3-D and 1787 Miller 1.4-WW; Vermont, Ryder 1 (the IMMUNE COLUMBIA reverse), 12, 16, 17, 19, 29, 30 and 39 and New York 1786 NON VI VIRTUTE VICI and the Standing Indian LIBER NATUS. He hoped to see if a more extensive sampling would modify the results Hodder found using just four varieties. His conclusions confirmed and expanded what Hodder had discovered. He found the broken A letter punch in the Immunis Columbia and New Jersey series were consistent, while the broken A's in the Vermont and Connecticut series, as well as the broken A in a two New York private issues, were produced from different broken A punches. Also, he discovered the Connecticut 1786 Miller 1-A coppers did not consistently contain the broken A.

We now know any Atlee attribution based soley on the use of a broken A punch is questionable. However, based on our current knowledge of the pitfalls of punch evidence, a reattribution cannot be based solely on a re-examination of the punches. Several years of work examining die relationships and emission sequences will be necessary before specific "broken A" families can be explained.

Was James Atlee a diemaker?

In a brief article on the Machin's Mills mint published a year before his Immunis Columbia findings, Michael Hodder had commented on a letter written by Thomas Machin's son to a Dr. F. B. Hough, long after the mint had closed. In the letter Thomas Machin, Jr., who had been a child when the mint was in operation, described the mint and the coining operation. In the letter he made a reference to Atlee relating the following episode, "Atlee, the engraver wore a horrid mask, and frightened some boys who came to fish so they never ventured near the mill again." Hodder noted that laborers working near an open furnace used such masks to protect their face from flying embers. He then concluded:

If the masks were facial protection, and Atlee was seen wearing one, than [sic, for then] we must assume that Atlee needed a mask because he worked near and often enough to the open hearths, at least on occasion. It is difficult to imagine why a die sinker would need facial protection in his craft. Perhaps Atlee's role at Machin's Mills involved more that just diesinking?

Samuel and James Atlee up to the Machin's Mills Indenture

The first and only study to trace the history of the Atlee family was published by Gary Trudgen in 1992. Trudgen not only discovered Samuel was James' father but has uncovered many significant and important details about the Atlees.

Samuel Atlee and his wife Ann lived in Bristol, England with their two sons, John, who was born in 1760, and James, who was born in 1762. In 1775 Samuel was listed a being a confectioner in the city, selling candy and sweets. By 1781 he had moved to a village near Bath and was engaged in the brewing and distilling trade. However, Samuel's distillery partnership went bankrupt in 1782 and in the following year he and Ann were divorced. Not long thereafter Samuel left for America, arriving in New York City in October of 1783 just as most loyalists were returning to England. New York City had been occupied by the British early in the war and served as headquarters for British military operations throughout most of the Revolution and so became a haven for royalists. With the peace treaty soon to take effect the British and their supporters were preparing to evacuate, leaving businesses and homes vacant. At the same time opportunists like Samuel Atlee were entering the city hoping to derive some advantage from the situation.

Within four months of arriving Samuel married a local resident Phebe Willis on February 12, 1784 and within a few months he seems to have established a brewery on Greenwich Street along the North River, near the Hudson. In the newspaper, The New York Packet,  for May 31, 1784 Samuel ran his first advertisement announcing the opening of Samuel Atlee and Co., porter brewers (porter is a dark beer). He opened this business in partnership with another recent British immigrant named William Alexander. Atlee soon had legal problems with some customers and retained James Giles as his attorney. Apparently business did not go well for Atlee, from a newspaper advertisment of November 22nd we learn he had lowered his price by some thirty percent. Soon thereafter on January 31, 1785 the partners petitioned for tax relief but their plea was rejected. A notice of June 7, 1785 stated Alexander had left the partnership but went on to explain the firm would continue to operate under the name of Atlee and Co. with Samuel Atlee, John Perkins and James F. Atlee. This is the first mention that Samuel's son James was in America. Unfortunately for the Atlees, their beer did not sell well and there advertised price continued to drop. By August 1785 the company was in such a crisis the court appointed an assignee to manage their business finances. Finally, in January of 1786 the partnership dissolved. On January 28, 1786 Perkins filed separate lawsuits against Samuel and James Atlee. From this point in time there were no further advertisements for Atlee beer but Samuel continued to lease the factory until December of 1787.

At some point in 1786 the Atlees formed a partnership with Albion Cox. Cox was an metal assayer who had recently arrived from England. In 1785 Cox had briefly joined into partnership with the silversmiths Van Voorhis and Coley but left the firm in April of that year, just a few months before the firm acquired the contract to produce dies for the mint in Rupert, Vermont. The nature of the Cox-Atlee partnership is not known. We do know on October 24, 1786 Samuel and James Atlee in partnership with Albion Cox sued a Christopher Duyckinck and almost a year later, on September 18, 1787 a John Murray, Jr. brought suit against the Atlees and Cox. It is interesting to know that they continued to use James Giles as their attorney (later he would be one of their partners in the Machin's Mills venture).

At the same time Cox was somehow involved with the Atlees he formed another partnership with Thomas Goadsby and Walter Mould. Goadsby seems to have been an investor who had a dry goods store in New York City and was acquainted with Cox. Mould was a coiner who had previously worked at George Wyon's mint in Birmingham, England. On June 1, 1786 these three partners were granted the right of producing coppers for the state of New Jersey.

The nature of the Atlee-Cox partnership is not know but Trudgen has speculated it could have been related to coining based on Cox's background as an assayer and his other partnership in the coining trade. Also, the fact that Atlee continued to rent the brewing factory space after his company was dissolved suggests he may have been using the building for other purposes, possibly producing illegal coppers. However, the most significant fact Trudgen has uncovered concerns the competition for the New York coining franchise. The state of New York announced it was accepting petitions and was going to award a coining franchise as had already been done in Connecticut, New Jersey and the Republic of Vermont. Apparently on February 2, 1787 James Atlee submitted a petition to the state legislature relative to the coining of coppers. This was the first of several petitions the state received requesting the privilege of coining coppers. Additional petitions were filed by Brasher and Bailey (February 11th), the partnership of Van Voorhis and Coley (February 16th), and by Thomas Machin (March 3rd). That Atlee went through the trouble and expense of formally presenting the state with a proposal for minting coins leads one to suspect James Atlee knew something about the coining business and felt he could carry out the contract if it was awarded to him. As to where and how Atlee obtained his coining ability is unknown. It has been surmised Atlee's initiation into the profession was through the production of illegal imitation British coppers in New York at his father's abandon factory, possibly in cooperation with Albion Cox.

Clearly the twenty five year old James Falconer Atlee had little chance of obtaining the New York contract faced with formidable competition from the well known silversmiths Brasher and Bailey and the extraordinary political influence of the governor's close friend, Thomas Machin. The details of the rejection of all the petitions and the Atlee's joining as copartners in the Machin's Mills operation is detailed in the Machin's Mills sections. Here I shall briefly review those events. On April 18, 1787 Thomas Machin took five partners, forming a firm to coin coppers. His partners were: David Brooks, a New York Assemblyman who was on the state monetary commission; James Grier, a co-partner with Brooks in a store in New York City; the New York City attorney James Giles and Samuel and James Atlee. Apparently Giles had previously worked with each of the partners at different times in the past.

Each partner was to put up fifty pounds for a total of three hundred pounds for the joint venture. Further, as mentioned earlier, the indenture stipulated the following:

And the said Samuel Atlee, and James F. Atlee being possessed of certain implements for carrying on said trade, do agree to lend them to the parties to these presents for and during the continuance of their copartnership without any fee or reward for the same. And the said Thomas Machin being possessed of certain mills, doth hereby agree to let the parties to these presents have the free use of them for and during the continuance of their copartnership (for the purpose of carrying on their joint trade) without any fee or reward for the same.

Commentary

At this point I believe it would be helpful to add a few words of commentary on James Atlee's role in coining. Currently there are three independent pieces of evidence linking Atlee to coining. The first is his petition to the State of New York to open a mint, the second is his position with Thomas Machin as a manager of the Machin's Mills operation as stated in the indenture and the third is the statement by Thomas Machin's son that James Atlee was the engraver for the enterprise. Outside of these three independent contemporary sources all other references to Atlee and coining are through inferences based on conjecture or reasonable doubt.

At present it seems reasonable to me to assume Atlee had some experience as a coiner. The fact that Samuel Atlee continued to rent the brewery building in 1786 after his company closed down and that the Atlees had some relationship with Albion Cox is certainly suggestive some type of business enterprise may have been undertaken. However, it could simply mean Atlee was obligated to continue paying on the building until his lease ran out. Also, not all of Cox's partnerships dealt with coining. It is only in relation to James Atlee's petition of February 2, 1787 to open a mint that one could reasonably surmise Atlee may have learned something of the trade in 1786.

Again, in the Machin's Mills indenture it was stated the Atlees possessed certain implements needed for carrying on the business. The nature of the implements owned by the Atlee's is unknown. However it seems reasonable to assume the implements were items none of the other partners had access to and that the implements were necessary for the coining operation.

Also, one could speculate why the twenty five year old James Atlee was chosen to supervise the business with Thomas Machin. Machin was a businessman who owned some mills but had never had been involved in coining. It seems quite likely Machin would have wanted a partner who knew something about minting. Reuben Harmon had realized this was a necessity for the continued operation of his Vermont mint. Indeed, one of Machin's competitors for the New York minting franchise, the silversmith and diemaker William Coley, left New York in March (about a month before the Machin's Mills indenture was signed) to become Harmon's on site copartner at the Vermont mint. It would seem if Machin was to accept an on site partner he would be looking for someone with some ability and experience in minting.

The only other information linking Atlee to coining is found in the letter from Thomas Machin's son quoted above, in which he called Atlee an engraver: "Atlee, the engraver wore a horrid mask, and frightened some boys who came to fish so they never ventured near the mill again." As Thomas Machin Jr. was a child when the mint was in operation and as his letter was recalling past events one might question the accuracy of his recollections. However, designating his father's copartner as an engraver seems rather important evidence that James Atlee did indeed at least produce dies.

The term "engraver" refers to someone who makes cuts into metal. Dies are engraved either by striking them with letter, number and device punches or by laboriously hand cutting the individual letters, numbers and images directly into the die. From the evidence of the coins attributed to Machin's Mills we know the dies were engraved with punches rather than by hand engraving.

In most colonial and Confederation era coining operations the die engraver had a set of number and letter punches. It is generally thought the engraver also made the necessary device punches for the coining operation. The engraver also used the punches to create the dies. Other, less skilled laborers working on the press, took the dies and actually stamped out the coins.

At Machin's Mills, as at all mints, the dies regularly wore out and needed to be replaced. The creation of these new dies was a laborious and time consuming task performed by an individual who would be called an engraver. Quite likely this was the job Thomas Machin, Junior meant to attribute to Atlee when he referred to Atlee as an engraver. One might also wonder if Atlee performed the even more difficult task of creating the device punches. This would only be an occasional operation as a punch would last several years and could be used to create many dies before it wore out. Whether Atlee also had the ability and skill to create engraved device punches cannot be determined from Machin's quote, as this degree of specificity may have been beyond what Thomas Machin, Jr. understood or meant to imply.

If one does not believe Atlee has acquired the skill to engrave punches then one must either assume the implements mentioned in the Machin's Mills indenture refer to a set of punches Atlee had acquired in New York and then brought to Machin's Mills, or, that there is another totally unknown and unmentioned individual who supplied punches to the operation.

Clearly, no one has considered James Atlee to be a fully apprenticed silversmith. Indeed, a silver or goldsmith was a rather complex and multifaceted professional who worked with all metals, gold and silver being the most precious and the ones yielding the highest profit. Rather, gold and silversmiths could more accurately be described as individuals with advanced metalworking skills or, in some cases, machinists with an artistic inclination. Today such individuals would probably be called metallurgists. The silversmith Paul Revere made all kinds of items from engraved copper plates for prints, currency and newspaper masts to creating museum quality silverware, teapots and bowls; he also cast large metal items such as cannons and numerous church bells and he also did some dentistry, including tooth replacement. Revere even constructed a machine to roll out copper in sheets and used it provide the copper for the dome of the Massachusetts State House as well as for the refinishing of the battleship, the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides). An advertisement by the silversmith Abel Buell of Connecticut in the Hartford American Mercury of April 16, 1801 shows the breath of a silversmith's abilities. In the advertisment Buell addressed his customers as if he were an outside party, speaking in the third person, he stated that he has:

...good apparatus for repairing, cleaning and polishing their Military arms of every description...he makes the most approved and fashionable ornaments for Military Caps and Cartridge-Boxes; paints and guilds flags; engraves Seals, Dies, Punches, and Copper Plates, marks Silver Plate and Rings, with elegant Cyphers and Arms; cuts Blocks and ornaments for Printers; makes and repairs any common or difficult work, fabricated from metal or wood.

How Atlee may have learned the diemaking trade is unknown, although one could speculate he learned it during his association with Albion Cox in New York. If he had not learned this trade before he left New York City why would he have thought he could be successful in bringing a coining petition before the New York legislature and why would Thomas Machin have chosen him as an on site manager? More importantly, if Atlee did not make the dies, then who produced the dies for the Machin's Mills mint? Finally, why would Machin's son have referred to Atlee as the engraver? Until there are better answers to these questions it seem to me the preponderance of the evidence points to James Atlee as the Machin's Mills diemaker.

Samuel and James Atlee after the Machin's Mills Indenture

While James Atlee moved to Machin's Mills in mid 1787 his father Samuel stayed in New York City. On July 7, 1787 Albion Cox borrowed £1,200 from his New Jersey coining copartner Thomas Goadsby, and Samuel Atlee acted as the cosigner for Cox. Cox defaulted on the debt and in December was put in jail. Trudgen suspects Atlee thought he would also end up in jail so he left for the Republic of Vermont. The Machin's Mills partnership had merged with the Vermont mint partnership so Samuel headed for the Vermont mint in Rupert. On December 11, 1787 The New York Packet  carried a notice that the brewery "lately in the possession of Samuel Atlee" was available for sale or rent from Richard Harrison, an attorney who owned the factory. Trudgen has noticed that Harrison lived at 59 Maiden Lane while James Giles, the Atlee's attorney and copartner in the Machin's Mills enterprise, lived next door at 58 Maiden Lane. For details on Samuel Atlee's association with the Vermont mint see the Vermont coppers introduction.

James Atlee seems to have left Machin's Mills after two years at the mint. He had certainly left the operation by the end of spring in 1789, for he is recorded as a witness to the transfer of a deed of land in Vergennes, Vermont on June 22, 1789. At that time his father, Samuel, was a resident of the city. James held the office of deputy sheriff in the town for a short period and then joined with two other partners in opening a distillery. However, James sold his share of the business within a year. On October 14, 1790, about a year and a half after leaving Machin's Mills, James wrote to Thomas Machin about an equitable settlement on the dissolution of the mint. Little is known concerning the whereabouts of James over the next few years. His father was declared an insolvent debtor in late 1792 but by 1795 was back in the distilling business. Samuel died in Vermont on September 9, 1797. James appears to have returned to England in the fall of 1794. In 1795 he opened a distillery with Richard Howell in London which became a successful business. In the same year, at age 33, he married for the first time. James and his wife Mary had four children (two boys named James and two girls named Sarah, which probably meant the first child with each name did not survive). His wife died in 1808. Six years later, in 1814, Atlee remarried and had two more daughters. He finally retired from business as a gentleman at age 60 in 1822. He died on July 29, 1840 in his 78th year.

References

Breen, 98-99; Crosby 191-192 and 287-288; Eric Newman, "A Recently Discovered Coin Solves a Vermont Enigma," Centennial Publications of the American Numismatic Society, New York: American Numismatic Society, 1958, pp. 531-542; Michael Hodder, "Halloween at Machin's Mills" The Colonial Newsletter 30 (October 1990, serial no. 86) 1190-1191; and his, "The 1787 "New York" Immunis Columbia; A Mystery Re-Ravelled," The Colonial Newsletter 31 (January 1991, serial no. 87) 1204-1235; John Lorenzo, "The So-Called Atlee Broken "A" Letter Punch" Coinage of the American Confederation Period,  edited by Philip L. Mossman, Coinage of the Americas Conference, Held October 28, 1995 at the American Numismatic Society, Proceedings Number 11, New York: American Numismatic Society, 1996, pp. 131-151; Peter Gaspar, "Coinage and Die-Making Techniques in the 17th Century," Metallurgy and Numismatics Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication number 33, London: Royal Numismatic Society, 1993; Gary A. Trudgen, "Samuel and James F. Atlee: Machin's Mills Partners" The Colonial Newsletter  vol. 32, no. 3 (October, 1992, serial number 92), 1318-1352; Gary A. Trudgen, "New York City Mayor's Court and the State Coinages" The Colonial Newsletter  vol. 30, no. 3 (October, 1990, serial number 86), 1192-1202; John M. Kleeberg, "Reconstructing the Beach-Grünthal Hoard of Counterfeit Halfpence: The Montclair, New Jersey (1922) Hoard" The American Journal of Numismatics   second series, vols. 7-8 (1995-1996) 187-208 and plates 24-27; Lawrence Wroth, Abel Buell of Connecticut: Silversmith, Type Founder and Engraver  Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1958 advertisement on the plate opposite p. 72; J. C. Spilman, "An Overview of Early American Coinage Technology (Continued)" The Colonial Newsletter  vol. 22, no. 1 (March, 1983, serial number 64) 800-811 with the letter of Thomas Machin Jr. to F. B. Hough on p. 806.

Section Contents	NYC Imitation British Halfpence