Brasher doubloon of 1787 with EB on eagle wing

Ephraim Brasher’s coins are legendary. 

And extremely rare. 

The Brasher Doubloon - in several varieties - is one of the most famous and coveted coin in numismatic history. 

Examples are a staple in lists of the most expensive coins ever sold. 

This is everything you need to know about the man who made it. 

British troops were fighting on American soil in King George's War when Ephraim Brasher was born in New York. 


Ephraim Brasher was baptised on April 18, 1744 in New York City, New York. 

He married Adriaantje Gilbert in New York on November 19, 1766. 

He died sometime before April 26, 1828 and the date is usually given as in 1810. 

His wife died before 1797 when Brasher married Mary Austin. With Mary he is believed to have had five children. 

The Brasher family were of Dutch heritage, using the Reformed Dutch Church of New York. 

The Middle Dutch Church, built as an extension to the church where Brasher was baptised.


The family named children after relatives. This means there are multiple Ephraim Brashers in public records and may have confused some tellings of his life. 

It’s likely that Brasher trained as a silversmith with his first wife’s brother. 

The only record of Ephraim Brasher ever leaving New York City is in the period of the British Occupation of the city during the American Revolutionary War, from 1776 to 1883. The Brasher family lived in Red Hook during this time. 

Brasher is recorded for a time living at 1 Cherry Street. This address was a good one, and his neighbour was George Washington, whose family owned Brasher silverware.  

The First Presidential Mansion in Cherry Street. Brasher must have been a successful man to make Washington his neighbour. 


Brasher worked as a silver- and goldsmith. 

Much of his recorded work seems to have been as an assessor of metal. 

With many nation’s coins circulating in the United States it could be difficult to find standardised values for money. Brasher - and people like him - regulated coinage by weighing it accurately, assessing its precious metal contents and guaranteeing its value. 

Brasher used an EB mark to show he had inspected and altered a coin. It can be found on British issued coins, for example, making them valuable rarities. 

Brasher’s work as a silversmith has been dated back by estimate to 1765, with a sword and a tea-urn the probable earliest known, surviving works. 

A Brasher tankard from around 1780. He was a skilled and in-demand silversmith.

From 1775 Brasher was serving in the New York Provincial Army, a revolutionary force under Colonel Lasher. 

Ephraim’s brother Abraham (another recurrent family name) was a prominent supporter of the American Revolution. He wrote songs and poetry in support of the rebellion. 

A 1776 newspaper advertisement offered a reward of three dollars for the return of a stolen sword that was reportedly engraved with Brasher’s name as maker. 

At this time Brasher was in exile in Red Hook while the British occupied New York. 

A modern view of Red Hook town hall. The town is still a quiet, country place, for the Brashers it was a refuge. Image by Daniel Case @ Wikipedia.   

Brasher was listed as an attender at the Gold and Silversmiths Society in 1786. 

In 1786 Brasher struck Lima doubloons. These were dated 1742 and designed to look like gold coins made in Lima, Peru - though Brasher signed them, and they weren’t forgeries meant to mislead. There are two known examples of Brasher Lime-style doubloons. 

On February 12, 1787 Brasher applied (alongside and possibly in conjunction with silversmith and sword maker John Bailey) for a franchise to produce copper coins for New York state. 

It is a recurring theory that Brasher’s gold coins were made as a model to demonstrate what could be achieved with a copper issue. 

New York state decided not to issue copper coins so the Brasher and Bailey applications were denied. 

Although it’s not completely clear that Brasher and Bailey were applying jointly or coincidentally simultaneously for the job it is almost certain they did work together in some ways on subsequent Brasher gold coins. 

Bailey had produced coins as a subcontractor to the mint at Elizabethtown. 

Brasher struck his first New York gold doubloons in 1787, probably as a demonstration. 

Both sides with a Brasher doubloon, this one with the hallmark on the wing of the eagle.


They seem designed as a national issue, with the Great Seal of the United States (the eagle motif) on the reverse. The national motto UNUM E PLURIBUS (one from many) runs around the edge of this face of the coin. The date, 1787, sits centrally at the bottom of the face. 

The obverse side shows the New York coat of arms (a sun, mountains and sea design). Around it runs the phrase, NOVA EBORACA COLUMBIA EXCELSIOR, (New York, America, ever higher). A circle of dots encloses the coat of arms, with Brasher’s name stamped at the bottom of the coat of arms inside this circle. 

Brasher then stamped his hallmark on the reverse. Six surviving Brasher doubloons have the stamp on the left wing (from observer’s point of view) of the eagle. One is hallmarked in the centre of the bird’s chest. 

New York State's coat of arms, still promising to go above and beyond - Excelsior! 

In 1789 Brasher is listed as working from 79 Queen Street, near to Cherry Hill. The same year Brasher is recorded as George Washington’s neighbour (New York was then the US capital) at 1 Cherry Street. He later moved to 5 Cherry Street. 

George Washington bought four trays from Brasher on September 6, 1790. 

Brasher was certainly still working as a silversmith at this date. 

In 1792 he was working for an assayer for the United States Mint. He was finally paid for the work in 1796, when Brashed assigned the payment of $27 to John Shield. Brasher’s boss was Alexander Hamilton. 

The first US Mint was in Philadelphia and was designed by necessity by a young, somewhat chaotic nation.  

In 1796 he retired from the US military. 

In 1800 and until 1801 he was in partnership with George Alexander as BRASHER & ALEXANDER. Their partnership was at 350 Pearl Street at its dissolution. 

Brasher held a number of local political posts, including coroner, assistant justice, and commissioner of excise. 

His death is recorded as November 10, 1810 by Old Middle Dutch Church. 

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