The First Official Penny Motto

On April 21, 1787, the Continental Congress of the United States authorized a design for the

 nation’s first coin, the Fugio Cent.  It was the first design for the penny and it was named 

the Fugio Cent because of it’s image of the sun shining down a sundial.  The coin was 

designed by Benjamin Franklin and had the inscription “Mind Your Business.”

Wikipedia

The phrase “Mind Your Business” and the images on the coin form a rebus (A puzzle in 

which words are represented by combinations of pictures, words and individual 

letters) which loosely reads as ‘time flies, do your work.’  According to Wikipedia, “Some 

historians believe that the word “business” was intended literally here, as Franklin was an 

influential and successful businessman. Given Franklin’s history publishing aphorisms, it 

may have been intended to mean both monetary and social business.”

The Fugio Cent was minted until 1789 when it was replaced by the penny with the motto “E 

pluribus unum” from the Great Seal of the United States.

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