New Hampshire Copper Coins

About This Coin

Among the rarest and most elusive of all post-Revolutionary state coppers, New Hampshire Copper Coins were produced in extremely limited quantities, making them prized trophies for collectors of Confederation-era American coinage. Struck in copper with a 28 mm diameter and plain edge, these pieces were likely produced as patterns or proposals in 1776, when the newly independent state considered establishing a copper coinage to address the chronic shortage of small change in New England commerce. Unlike Connecticut and Vermont, which produced substantial quantities of authorized copper coinage during the 1780s, New Hampshire's coinage program apparently never progressed beyond the pattern or experimental stage. The few surviving New Hampshire coppers feature designs that reflect the political aspirations of the new state — typically incorporating imagery of liberty, pine trees (an enduring symbol of New England independence), and patriotic inscriptions. The extreme rarity of these pieces — with some varieties known in only a handful of examples — places them among the most coveted coins in all of early American numismatics. Within the Post-1776 Private and Regional Issues (1778-1820) series, New Hampshire Copper Coins represent a coinage program that never reached fruition, preserved only through the survival of the few pattern pieces that document what might have been had the state followed the path of its copper-coining neighbors.