Mott Token

About This Coin

Issued by the New York City jewelry and watchmaking firm of William and John Mott around 1789, the Mott Token is one of the most recognizable and widely discussed privately issued tokens from the early American republic. The obverse features a standing clock flanked by an eagle, representing the Mott firm's trade in timepieces and watches, while the reverse depicts a spread eagle — a patriotic motif that connected the merchants' commercial enterprise to the national identity of the newly constituted United States. Measuring 28 mm in diameter and struck in copper, the Mott Token conforms to the approximate size and weight of a British halfpenny, positioning it within the informal circulating medium that served American commerce during the late 1780s and early 1790s when federal coinage did not yet exist and small-denomination transactions relied on a chaotic mixture of foreign coins, state coppers, and private tokens. The Mott firm operated at 240 Water Street in lower Manhattan, in the heart of the commercial district that served New York's bustling port economy, and their decision to issue a trade token reflects both the entrepreneurial spirit of the early republic and the practical necessity of providing customers with change in an economy chronically short of small coins. Numismatic scholars have debated the exact date of the Mott Token's production, with some arguing for 1789 based on the eagle design's similarity to other Federal-period iconography and others proposing slightly later dates based on die analysis and the firm's business records. The token appears in multiple reference catalogs — Rulau for American tokens, Baker for Washington-associated pieces (though the Mott Token does not depict Washington), and various colonial and early American references — reflecting its importance as a commercial artifact of the post-Revolutionary economy. Collectors value the Mott Token for its attractive designs, its well-documented merchant attribution, and its role as one of the earliest identified American merchant tokens, with better-preserved specimens commanding premiums that reflect both numismatic demand and historical significance.