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 Replies: 9 / Views: 2,753 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
812 Posts |
Can anyone tell me some good sources of information about the types of world coins used in colonial America? I know the majority of these coins were silver minted in the Spanish colonies and copper minted in Great Britain. I'm trying to find out what other coins were showing up often enough that a merchant would recognize them, but were relatively uncommon (at least less common than the types mentioned above).
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1173 Posts |
I would speculate that Dutch coins were found in the American colonies during the 17th century at least, since the Pilgrims came from England by way of Holland. And the French were establishing a presence in the New World, as well, so French coins probably were circulating to some degree.
Edited by hunter20ga
09/14/2007 2:44 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4589 Posts |
The RedBook (R.S Yeoman) Whitman publishing has a decent amount of info , Also Walter Breens catalogue has some decent info as well |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
597 Posts |
Depends on where and when, Dutch coins circulated much earlier, usually late 17th and early 18th century, but were superseded by French coins beginning with the rise of Nouvelle France and La Louisiane. In the excavations of Jamestown, VA some German and Scottish coins were found. Curiously even 17th Century English tokens occasionally turn up, their having been banned for usage in England after the 1670's, so often they ended up going to Virginia for use there.
It is an alien concept to us in the 21st century to appreciate the dearth of coinage during that time, even regnal coinage within England could not even come close to filling the need, resulting in as many as 20,000 different token issues from 1649-1672. In Scotland tokens were not nearly as common as in England, but much coinage was imported from France and Holland and Gelderland during that time. No doubt some of these tournois and duits made it to England and then to her colonies in America.
A major contributor of foreign coinage was Ireland, where unpopular halfpennies and farthings were exported to the colonies, notably the William Woods coinages of the 1720's. Quite possibly more of the Hibernia farthings and halfpennies circulated in the American colonies than ever in Ireland. Curiously William Wood was also responsible for the Rosa Americana coinages, which were created with the American colonies as the intended locale for circulation, but as with the Hibernia coinage, they were unpopular due to the diminutive size by comparison to contemporary English coinage of the time. Massachusetts Bay Colony went so far as officially banning the circulation of the Wood's coinages in 1723, and releasing small denomination paper money in it's place.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
Bilbo - The issue of just what period of time you are referring to is very critical. My focus may be a bit later in time, because I have always been interested in the first years of the US Republic.
As long as we were an English possession, England tried to control our access to hard currency. Resulting in the proliferation of "token" coinages which are defined as coins with a lower metallic content than the face value. Hard money - full intrinsic value coinage was a world standard but the colonial US was constrained - not totally but substantially.
That changed during and after the Revolution. It is difficult if not impossible to determine a precise list of just what was in circulation or when the coins arrived. In general Scottishmoney is correct. The list of coins in circulation expands after the revolution and there is a great snapshot in time preserved by John Riddell in his "Monograph of the Silver Dollar, Good and Bad". In his book, published in 1845, Dr. Riddell shows all of the coins in circulation in the US between 1839 and 1844. He includes US issues and all other countries that he discovered in his role as melter and refiner for the US mint at New Orleans. The US mint made all of their coins from melted foreign silver coins removed from circulation. About 50,000 dollar coins were melted each month. So he did have some familiarity with which coins were circulating in that interval.
If you or anyone else is interested I can put together a list of the Riddell coins. There are about 420 dollar coins listed and roughly 300 of those varieties were counterfeits. It may take some time, but the majority are Spanish colonies.
One interesting exception is the Sierra Leone Dollar coin of 1791 - the Riddell #6. This of course indicates that this 1791 coin circulated between 1839 and 1844 but when did it arrive? Studies done by the US mint in the 1870s indicated the life span of a dollar coin at 50 plus years. How long did they circulate in the 1770s?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
597 Posts |
Coins in general circulated a lot longer even into the early part of the 20th century. My grandmother remembers spending Flying Eagle cents during the depression. Money was money, and there wasn't a lot of it for most people, so whatever came across tended to get spent. Of course during the 19th century the situation could be a greater comparison to the depression era, particularly in the Midwest and West of the country. I have read accounts of people getting beaten up Bust Dollars from circulation in the early 20th century, along with Mexican Pesos, which I find interesting as they had no tender status after 1857. I think it particularly fascinating to consider how people must have accepted so many forms of tender, many of which they might not have even been familiar with. As an illustration of the relative value of money during 1806 I attach the following, which is from "Tables of Interest" published by Royal Bank of Scotland in 1806:  Notice of course the reference to the Eagle and the Dollar, but also of Dutch, Italian, Germanic, French coinages etc. Any of these could have had relative value accordingly in the USA during that time. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
812 Posts |
I really appreciate all this excellent information!
My collection includes a Pillar Dollar (Mexican 8 reales, 1771), Silver Rider (Netherlands/Utrecht ducaton, 1679), Lion Dollar (Netherlands/West Friesland daalder, 1640), and a French Crown (French ecu, 1728). I also have Spanish colonial 1/2 real, 1 real, and 2 reales coins; Woods Hibernia coppers; British sixpence and shillings; and a 1/2 real from Spain; these are all from the early to mid 1700s and I'm sure are types used in colonial America.
I'm not so sure about my Thaler (Bavavia, 1771) and Portuguese 200 reis (1767). I'm sure they COULD have been used, as they were good silver, but did coins like those actually appear often enough that a merchant would recognize them?
Swamperbob, I would be very interested in the list of Riddell coins.
I'd also be interested to know if anyone else has coins from this period and what they might be.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
Bilbo - Here is a quick list from Riddell
1 1795 US Flowing Hair
2 1796 US Small Eagle
3 1801 US Heraldic
4 1836 US Gobrecth
5 1842 US Seated Liberty
6 1791 Sierra Leone 100 Centimes
7 1691 Spain Philip IV 8R
8 1778 Spain Charles III
9 1808 Spain Ferdinand VII
10 to 12 1808 and 1809 Spain Ferdinand VII proclaimation
13 1808 Spanish Provincial Gerona KM 10
14 1809 Spanish Provincial Lerida KM 10
15 1810 Spanish Provincial Barcelona KM 69
16 1811 Spain Ferdinand VII 8R
17 1812 Spain Joseph Napoleon
18 1821 Spain Ferdinand VII 20R
19 1836 Spain Isabella II 20R
20 1694 Bolivia cob 8R
21 n.d. Mexico cob 8R
22 1763 Mexico Pillar 8R
23 1785 Mexico Charles III 8R
24 1793 Mexico Charles IIII 8R with Chinese Chops
25 1807 Mexico Charles IIII 8R
26 1809 Mexico Ferdinand VII transitional
27 1808 Peru Ferdinand VII transitional
28 1810 Peru Ferdinand VII transitional
29 1804 Bank of England dollar
30-44 Mexican Insurgent types - including some very rare types
45-79 Mexican counterfeit portrait 8Rs
80-88 Brazil 960 Reis including Minas Gerias counterstamp
89 1834 Brazil 1200 Reis
90-106 Peru varieties including Provisional and Royalist cmks
107-109 Chile
110 1836 Rio de la Plata
111 1839 Argentina
112-114 Columbia
115-118 Bolivia
119-120 Central American Republic
121-182 Mexico various types
183-425 Mexico counterfeit varieties
426 to 512 are Half Dollar varieties
As you can see, this list includes some very scarce coins. All were circulating in the US and all would have been familiar to merchants.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1801 Posts |
Another good reference is the book "Money of the American Colonies and Confederation" by Mossman. It has about 47 pages in one of the early chapters that covers everything from wampum to foreign coins. The main silver coinage was spanish american like your pillar dollar and the smaller 4,2,and 1 reales.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
812 Posts |
The Mossman book is now officially on my Christmas Wish List.
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Replies: 9 / Views: 2,753 |
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Posted 09/14/2007 2:45 pm
