1 Dollar - Continental Currency Pattern

The Continental Currency coinage of 1776 was almost certainly never intended for mass circulation — these pieces are better understood as proposals or trial strikes produced at a moment when the Continental Congress desperately needed a hard-money solution to back paper currency that was already depreciating. The brass examples are among several metal variants struck, alongside pewter and silver, likely by Elisha Gallaudet working from a design attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

The paper Continental dollar had lost roughly a third of its face value by the end of 1776. No federally sanctioned coinage would actually circulate for another decade.