Fugio cent
1787 ・ copper ・ 18th century ・ United States (period of the Confederation Congress)
A rising sun and a sundial, the legend FUGIO, and 'MIND YOUR BUSINESS' — the back carries thirteen linked rings and 'WE ARE ONE'. It is an early cent struck in 1787, and the design is handed down as Benjamin Franklin's idea (the source register too records this as tradition). It is a copper coin taking over the same imagery as the Continental Currency dollar dated 1776. In that year at Philadelphia, with the memory of the Continental notes still raw, the Constitutional Convention was writing the clauses on money — the power to coin to the federal Congress, coinage and paper money by the individual states forbidden. Behind a single copper coin, the frame of the new country's money was being settled.