A piedfort [1] ( UK: /piˈeɪfɔːrt,ˈpiːɛdˌfɔːrt/ , [2] [3] US: /piˌeɪˈfɔːr,piˈeɪfɔːr/ ; [4] [1] French : pied-fort or piéfort [5] [pjefɔʁ] ) is an unusually thick coin, often exactly twice the normal weight and thickness of other coins of the same diameter and pattern. Piedforts are not normally circulated, and are only struck for presentation purposes by mint officials (such as patterns), or for collectors, dignitaries and other VIPs. [6] Piedfort is less commonly spelled "piefort".
Piedfort coins were first recorded in France and Great Britain during the Middle Ages, with the first French piedforts appearing in the 12th century. The reason the coins were minted in piedfort form was probably to prevent them from being lost among normal circulating coins. [7] Theories for the original purpose of the earliest piedfort coins are:
Later, the higher rarity of piedfort versions of a nation's coinage led to them being used as prestigious diplomatic gifts to kings, nobility, dignitaries and other VIPs. Note that coin collecting has traditionally been called "the hobby of kings". The demand for piedforts from politically influential coin collectors resulted in such routine production that a droit de pied fort, or "right of piedfort", was instituted as a formal code of rules defining who was entitled to a piedfort version of a new coin design. Edicts of such rules date back to at least 1355 in France. [11] [12]
The first British piedforts were silver pennies minted during the reign of Edward I (1272 to 1307). Britain stopped routinely minting piedforts in 1588, but France continued to mint them for at least another 150 years before also ceasing production. The routine production of piedforts began again in France in 1890, and Britain began to produce piedforts available to the public for the first time in 1982. [7] Since then, Britain's Royal Mint has become well-known for creating many commemorative piedfort coins. [13] China produced piedforts for collectors in 1988. [14]
Piedfort is a compound of the French words "pied" (foot), [15] and "fort" (strong, great, heavy). [16] It literally means "heavy foot", but the idiomatic meaning is "heavy weight". [6] 18th century encyclopedic French dictionaries record it in the form of two separate words, as "pied fort" (1774):
PIED FORT, terms of currency, this word is said of a coin of gold, silver, or other metal, that is thicker than ordinary currency... [17]
The modern form of "piedfort" appears in English by 1802 in a Sotheby's auction catalog, [18] by which time the term was already in wide use.
Impropriety of the piefort misspelling is attested to 1917, when the error had become common enough to warrant a mention in an early numismatic jargon dictionary:
Piefort, or more properly, Piedfort, means literally any coin struck on an unusually thick planchet as a trial piece or essay. [19]
The piefort misspelling appears in English as early as 1893, where the author and citing authors give false etymologies of the word relating to the weight (not thickness) of a coin, the depiction of human legs on a coin, and a corruption of the name of the Belgian city of Liège ("Luik" in Dutch) as "Leg". [20]
The influential Krause and Mishler Standard Catalog of World Coins has used both piedfort and piefort interchangeably for at least the prior 3 decades, as of 2012.
The piefort misspelling has crept back into the French language as piéfort. [11] [21]
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government. Coins often have images, numerals, or text on them. The faces of coins or medals are sometimes called the obverse and the reverse, referring to the front and back sides, respectively. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse is known as tails.
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
The history of ancient Greek coinage can be divided into four periods: the Archaic, the Classical, the Hellenistic and the Roman. The Archaic period extends from the introduction of coinage to the Greek world during the 7th century BC until the Persian Wars in about 480 BC. The Classical period then began, and lasted until the conquests of Alexander the Great in about 330 BC, which began the Hellenistic period, extending until the Roman absorption of the Greek world in the 1st century BC. The Greek cities continued to produce their own coins for several more centuries under Roman rule. The coins produced during this period are called Roman provincial coins or Greek Imperial Coins.
The United States three cent piece was a unit of currency equaling 3⁄100 of a United States dollar. The mint produced two different three-cent coins for circulation: the three-cent silver and the three-cent nickel. Additionally, a three-cent bronze coin was made as a pattern in 1863. During the period from 1865 to 1873, both coins were minted, albeit in very small quantities for the silver three-cent piece.
The Eisenhower dollar is a one-dollar coin issued by the United States Mint from 1971 to 1978; it was the first coin of that denomination issued by the Mint since the Peace dollar series ended in 1935. The coin depicts President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the obverse, and a stylized image honoring the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon mission on the reverse. Both sides were designed by Frank Gasparro, with the reverse based on the mission patch designed by astronaut Michael Collins. It is the only large-size U.S. dollar coin whose circulation strikes contained no silver.
In Canada, a penny is an out-of-production coin worth one cent, or 1⁄100 of a dollar. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the official term for the coin is the one-cent piece, but in practice the terms penny and cent predominate. Penny was likely readily adopted because the previous coinage in Canada was the British monetary system, where Canada used British pounds, shillings, and pence as coinage alongside U.S. decimal coins. Like all Canadian coins, the obverse depicts the reigning Canadian monarch at the time of issue.
Charles Edward Barber was an American coin engraver who served as the sixth chief engraver of the United States Mint from 1879 until his death in 1917. He had a long and fruitful career in coinage, designing most of the coins produced at the mint during his time as chief engraver. He did full coin designs, and he designed about 30 medals in his lifetime. The Barber coinage were named after him. In addition, Barber designed a number of commemorative coins, some in partnership with assistant engraver George T. Morgan. For the popular Columbian half dollar, and the Panama-Pacific half dollar and quarter eagle, Barber designed the obverse and Morgan the reverse. Barber also designed the 1883 coins for the Kingdom of Hawaii, and also Cuban coinage of 1915. Barber's design on the Cuba 5 centavo coin remained in use until 1961.
A pattern coin is a coin which has not been approved for release, but produced to evaluate a proposed coin design. They are often off-metal strike, to proof standard or piedforts. Many coin collectors collect and study pattern coins because of their historical importance. Many of the world's most valuable coins are pattern coins; nearly 25 of the pieces listed in 100 Greatest US Coins are pattern coins.
This glossary of numismatics is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to numismatics and coin collecting, as well as sub-fields and related disciplines, with concise explanations for the beginner or professional.
The Silver center cent is an American pattern coin produced by the United States Mint in 1792. As a precursor to the large cent it was one of the first coins of the United States and an early example of a bimetallic coin. Only 12 original examples are known to exist, of which one is located in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Two more specimens exist but contain fabricated plugs added after minting.
The United States trade dollar was a dollar coin minted by the United States Mint to compete with other large silver trade coins that were already popular in East Asia. The idea first came about in the 1860s, when the price of silver began to decline due to increased mining in the western United States. A bill providing in part for the issuance of the trade dollar was eventually put before Congress, where it was approved, and signed into law as the Coinage Act of 1873. The act made trade dollars legal tender up to five dollars. A number of designs were considered for the trade dollar, and an obverse and reverse created by William Barber were selected.
The history of the English penny can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 7th century: to the small, thick silver coins known to contemporaries as pæningas or denarii, though now often referred to as sceattas by numismatists. Broader, thinner pennies inscribed with the name of the king were introduced to Southern England in the middle of the 8th century. Coins of this format remained the foundation of the English currency until the 14th century.
The Canadian silver dollar was first issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The coin's reverse design was sculpted by Emanuel Hahn and portrays a voyageur and a person of Indigenous descent paddling a birch-bark canoe. The faint lines in the background represent the Northern Lights. The voyageur design was used on the dollar until 1986. It was then replaced with the 1987 Canadian 1-dollar coin. 1967 marked the end of the silver dollar as a business strike, or a coin issued for circulation. After 1967, the dollar coin was made of nickel, except for non-circulating commemorative issues for the collector market, which continue to contain silver.
The British pre-decimal penny was a denomination of sterling coinage worth 1⁄240 of one pound or 1⁄12 of one shilling. Its symbol was d, from the Roman denarius. It was a continuation of the earlier English penny, and in Scotland it had the same monetary value as one pre-1707 Scottish shilling. The penny was originally minted in silver, but from the late 18th century it was minted in copper, and then after 1860 in bronze.
The 1-yen coin is the smallest denomination of the Japanese yen currency. Historically they were initially made of both silver and gold in the early 1870s. Issues facing the Japanese government at the time included wanting to adopt the gold standard, and competing against the Mexican dollar for use in foreign trade. The decision was made to use silver one yen coins exclusively outside of Japan for trade, while gold coins were minted and used in mainland Japan. Gold and silver coins were eventually allowed to co-circulate in mainland Japan from 1878 to 1897 when they were demonetized. Millions of former one yen silver coins were countermarked by the Japanese government for use outside of the mainland. Silver one yen coins continued to be minted until 1914 for backing up currency.
The United States Assay Commission was an agency of the U.S. federal government from 1792 to 1980. Its function was to supervise the annual testing of the gold, silver, and base metal coins produced by the United States Mint to ensure that they met specifications. Although some members were designated by statute, for the most part the commission, which was freshly appointed each year, consisted of prominent Americans, including numismatists. Appointment to the Assay Commission was eagerly sought after, in part because commissioners received a commemorative medal. These medals, different each year, are extremely rare, with the exception of the 1977 issue, which was sold to the general public.
The California Diamond Jubilee half dollar was a United States commemorative silver fifty-cent piece struck at the San Francisco Mint in 1925. It was issued to celebrate the 75th anniversary of California statehood.
Vault Protector coins were a type of Chinese numismatic charm coins created by Chinese mints. These coins were significantly larger, heavier and thicker than regular cash coins and were well-made as they were designed to occupy a special place within the treasury of the mint. The treasury had a spirit hall for offerings to the gods of the Chinese pantheon, and Vault Protector coins would be hung with red silk and tassels for the Chinese God of Wealth. These coins were believed to have charm-like magical powers that would protect the vault while bringing wealth and fortune to the treasury.
The 2 sen coin (二銭硬貨) was a Japanese coin worth one-fiftieth of a Japanese yen, as 100 sen equalled 1 yen. Two sen coins were minted during the Meiji period, and are made from nearly pure copper. Priority was initially given to silver coins when the new yen currency system was adopted in 1871 as copper coins could not be produced yet. Aside from a design change and a two year lapse, two sen coins were made from 1873 to 1884. The two sen coin was then discontinued and eventually demonetized in the mid-20th century. These coins are now sought after as collectors items which bring premium amounts depending on the date and condition.
The Waitangi crown is a commemorative crown coin struck in 1935 by the British Royal Mint for the Dominion of New Zealand to commemorate the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, often seen as New Zealand's founding constitutional document. It was the first five-shilling piece minted of the New Zealand pound and the nation's first coin minted primarily for collectors. Following the rejection of designs by James Berry and George Kruger Gray, Royal Mint designer Percy Metcalfe was commissioned to design the reverse. Design disagreements plagued the production of the crown, and only an extremely small mintage of 1,128 was struck and distributed to collectors. Released to muted media coverage and a general lack of interest in coin collecting during the economic aftermath of the Great Depression, the coin has become heavily sought by collectors of New Zealand coinage. Regularly selling for thousands of dollars, one pattern issue of the coin auctioned at over $70,000 USD, becoming the most expensive New Zealand coin ever sold.