Confederatio Copper Coins

About This Coin

The Confederatio copper coins, weighing 7 grams with a 28 mm diameter and plain edge, represent one of the most intriguing proposed national coinage designs of the Confederation period, bearing the legend CONFEDERATIO that directly references the Articles of Confederation governing the United States from 1781 to 1789. These pattern or proposed coins feature various obverse and reverse die combinations, including a stars-and-rays motif, a small eagle, a large eagle, and other designs that were paired in multiple configurations suggesting experimental die testing rather than settled production. The identity of the manufacturer remains debated — some scholars attribute the Confederatio coppers to a private operator hoping to secure a government coinage contract, while others suggest they may have been produced as proposals by someone with connections to the Continental Congress or its successor institutions. The CONFEDERATIO legend is the piece's most distinctive feature, as it explicitly invokes the governmental framework of the Articles of Confederation at a time when that framework was being increasingly criticized as inadequate for the nation's monetary and commercial needs. Extremely rare across all die combinations, Confederatio coppers document the speculative and experimental nature of American coinage production during the period between independence and the establishment of the United States Mint in 1792, when multiple parties competed to define the visual identity and manufacturing standards of the new nation's money.