Excerpt from The Standard Catalogue of United States Coins and Currency From 1652 to Present Day: Early American Coins, United States Gold, Silver and Copper Coins, Private Gold Coins, Merchants Tokens, Civil War Tokens, Encased Postage Stamps, Colonial and Continental Currency, United States Notes and Fractional Currency

The first mint established in this country was authorized by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1651 and began operation in Boston the follow ing year. The ne, willow, oak and pine tree coins were the product of this mint. The Bermuda coinage antedates the above by over thirty years but could hardly have had any circulation in the colonies.

In 1658 the Lord Baltimore coins were planned for Maryland but never achieved any circulation as they were all short weight.

William Wood received a Royal Grant to strike copper coins for use in the colonies and his Rosa Americana pieces undoubtedly had some circula tion here as well as his Hibernia halfpence which were not accepted in Ireland.

After the Revolution several of the states established their own mints, those of New Jersey and Connecticut having quite an extensive coinage of great interest to present day collectors.

The various experimental and trial pieces speak for themselves as little is known about them, except that a large proportion of them originated in England, evidently as an effort to secure contracts for the preparation of dies for a new coinage.

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