Flowing Hair dollar
1794 ・ silver ・ 18th century ・ United States Mint, Philadelphia
Liberty with flowing hair, and the date 1794. The back is a small eagle inside a wreath of branches. The Coinage Act of 1792 made the dollar the monetary unit of the United States, adopted decimal reckoning, and wrote one dollar = 371.25 grains of silver; under that law the first silver dollar was struck at the United States Mint in Philadelphia — the Flowing Hair dollar. The act lays down the death penalty for fraud by officers of the Mint. It is testimony to how heavily the newborn republic weighed trust in its money. The Mint's output, however, was slight, and the money of daily life was still the Spanish dollar.