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Making Sense by John D. Wright NLG

This year culminates thirty-four years of construction as the Prado is completed in Madrid, Spain to house and display the art and sculpture collections of the Spanish royal families.

The Spanish fare less well abroad, as Simon Bolivar liberates New Granada from Spain. He becomes the first President of Gran Columbia, comprising parts of present-day Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama.

Kamehameha, king of Hawaii, dies at 82. His son (age 22) will reignf or five years, overthrowing the ancient Hawaiian taboo system and welcoming the first missionaries to Hawaii. The population of the Hawaiian Islands has fallen to 150,000 due to European and American diseases.

In this country the key phrase is "financial distress and westward expansion". Rampant financial speculation, depreciation, and circulation of unsupported local banknotes have led to a financial panic and one of the worst economic depressions in the young country's history.

The State of Maryland has imposed a tax on the Bank of the United States in an attempt to provide an advantage to local banks. The US Supreme Court rules that "No state may impose a tax upon a Federally-appointed instrumentality". The ruling specifies "to permit this would convey the right for states to tax and thereby control the mail and the mint, thereby defeating all ends of the Government".

The National Highway (aka "Cumberland Road") stretching from Baltimore to Wheeling VA carries a torrent of thousands of immigrants who are unable to find property or satisfying jobs in the East. Over the next few decades the National Road will extend beyond the Great Lakes.

The first boat to travel the Erie Canal makes its way to Utica. The canal is being dug by Yankee engineers and Irish immigrants. Laborers are paid three bits (37.5 cents) and a quart of whisky per day. They die by the thousands from malaria, pneumonia, and snakebite.

The cities of Memphis and Minneapolis are founded on the Mississippi River. The Missouri River Expedition has commissioned five steamboats to explore the Missouri River. Three of the boats fail to get very far, but the Independence travels two hundred miles to Franklin. The Western Engineer, requiring a water-depth of only twenty inches and traveling at three miles per hour (a normal walking-speed), continues upstream to Council Bluffs.

The University of Virginia is chartered at Charlottesville, three miles west of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Classes will begin six years hence.

After twenty-eight days of hearings and heated arguments, Congress votes to NOT censure Andrew Jackson for his "unauthorized campaign against the Spanish in Florida". Jackson had insulted the Spanish envoy with the advice "If you can't control it, get out of it". Two weeks later, Spain signs a treaty with the US whereby Spain cedes all of Florida to the US, ending more than three hundred years of Spanish domination of Florida.

Alabama becomes the 22nd state. Its constitution recognizes slavery and contains a Bill of Rights that applies to "all white men". This may be the first formal "good ole boy" provision within a US state constitution.

The state legislature of Massachusetts agrees to allow the District of Maine to separate and petition for statehood.

The US mint in Philadelphia produces three million coins this year, most of them being half dollars and large cents. Fewer than 200,000 quarter dollars and half eagles complete the coinage of 1819.

Oddities of this year include the half-eagle reverse with denomination "5D" engraved over "50". Evidently the engraver got into a rut after preparing so many half-dollar dies. Both half dollars and cents come with small and large date-punches and with an 1819/8 overdate.

There are ten die-varieties of 1819 cents, none of them rare. This is a fabulous year for collectors wanting a lot of really obvious differences without going into a lot of money. Cents of 1819 include an overdate, large and small dates, wide dates, close dates with stars very near and far from the date, two distinctive letter styles on the reverse, and two varieties from heavily rust-pitted dies.

Collectors of "coiners caviar" might also include an 1819 cent, as a small handful of Proof 1819 cents are known. The one-a-year collector will be happy with one of the several hundred Mint State examples of 1819, most of them being from the Randall Hoard.

All of these factors -- ready availability, nominal cost, wide variability, existence of superb examples, and the historical events of this year -- make 1819 a really fascinating year to collect.

John D. Wright is the author of "The CENT Book", which covers U.S. cents of 1816-1839. He has collected U.S. large cents for over forty years.

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