Confederate States Of America Coins

so the coin featured in Sahara is total fiction? That would be a shame because that's an interesting part of history, as part of my defence degree at university I did a paper on the American Civil War and have always wanted a small collection of artefacts from that conflict

so to buy a token with CSA on it would be expensive?

Only two coin designs for Confederate States coins made it as far as the "pattern" stage: the half dollar and the 1 cent. These patterns, and even the restrikes of them made from original dies long after the war ended, are rare and collectable. None were made in circulation quantity. The circulation half-dollars made in New Orleans while under Confederate control were all of the standard Union design. The "Confederate gold coins" featured in the movie are complete fantasies, as is the concept of using a gold coin as an emergency screwdriver (gold is way too soft).

If you want numismatic items issued in the name of the Confederate government, you'll have to settle for paper money.

On a further historical note, this forum was only a couple of months old when the movie came out in 2005. You can read what the previous generation of forum members thought about the issue here and here.

When I was young I was keenly interested in the Civil War. When I got older and my kids were young, we visited Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor. I still have an interest in the war, but it has been tempered by the immense size of the cemeteries compared to the small battlefields. So much killing in so little space.

The best artifacts of the Civil War are bullets. They tell the story. The coins are only an obscure footnote.

Yes. There were patterns made with Confederate designs for the cent and half dollar but, there were also 1861-O half dollars struck using the federal dies with United States of America on the reverse.

On January 31, 1861 the State of Louisiana took control of the Mint and struck coins using the existing dies on hand. In late February the state turned over mint operations to the Confederacy which struck coins until they shut down the mint on April 30, 1861. With extensive research it is believed that 3 die marriages are credited to the Union, 7 to the State of Louisiana, and 5 to the Confederacy.

No gold coins were struck. In fact, all of the gold and most of the silver bullion at the Mint was shipped to Philadelphia in late 1860 so there was not very much left when the mint was taken over.

g048406 got all of the pieces the CSA minted except they also struck 2,991 double eagles at New Orleans used USA dies. The 1861-D $1, 1861 C and D half eagles were also struck using USA dies. The USA also struck 61 C and D half eagles and 61 O double eagles with the same dies so they can't be told apart from the CSA issues (yet). ALL of the 61 D gold dollars though are CSA coins.

I've never seen Sahara, but I believe the coin in question was supposed to be a CSA $20 gold piece. So the CSA DID strike $20 gold pieces but they were exactly like the USA struck coins.

conder101 is correct, I forgot the 1861-o $20 Gold.