20 Questions! (Forum Game)

Was this coin issued by a primarily SPanish-speaking, independent country (at the time of issue)?

No, it was not.

OK. We are at 7/20, and IF this is a coin of the Americas, I think all of South America except the Guianas (which are above the equator and not Spanish speaking) have been ruled out. I think Mexico (except the 1860s when it was not independent) and Central America except for British Honduras have been ruled out. We could be in Canada (including NB, NS, PEI...), Caribbean.

We should also remember there are places like Iceland, Greenland, Ireland, Portugal, Azores, Cape Verde that are geographically in the Western Hemisphere despite being part of Europe. Likewise Morocco, Liberia, French West Africa are Western Hemisphere.

Depending on how tricky joecoin wants to be, we should also remember that The Royal Mint can be considered to have been in the Western Hemisphere (London) in the 19th century.

Is this a coin issued by an island which lies west of 30 degrees west longitude?

OK, gang.

Some of the more likely places we are left with are Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island in Canada (I think the majority of Nova Scotia is considered a peninsula rather than an island), Hawaii, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico(coins from the last two likely minted in Spain?). Then it gets tricky, as we have gotten a yes answer to the coin being minted in the western hemisphere, and I can't think of smaller islands which could have minted their own coins this far back.
Jamaica has coins 1880-1900 but minted in the UK. Curacao has a few tokens, likely minted in Netherlands.

I had phrased the question as Spanish-speaking independent countries. I'm pretty sure Puerto Rico was never independent (Spanish-colony then U.S. possession), but its coins of the 1890s were minted in Spain, which is only Western Hemisphere in a very technical sense (Madrid is west of the prime meridian). I'm not sure about Cuba, but I'm guessing it was a colony for at least part of that period 1850-1900 that is ruled in, but again I doubt the coins would have been minted there.
And I think Dominican Republic, though Spanish-speaking and on an island, was independent already, so it's out.

I'm leaning toward the Canadian islands or Kingdom of Hawaii. But my first hunch is almost always wrong.

Im going to waste one.

Does this coin have a depiction of a tree on it?

Hmmm. We should not forget the English speaking Bermuda Islands...

Not Philippines. That is Eastern Hemisphere.


Did Bermuda issue coins 1850-1900? If so, yes, it could be a possibility, like Jamaica. But Numista shows Bermuda skipping from 1790s to 1960s. I tried to quickly scroll through the English speaking Caribbean, and only saw Jamaica fitting the date range, but I could easily have missed something.

Good to brainstorm all the options like this!



It's still early. If @keith gets a yes, we're in. Unless I'm missing something, most of the possible places have only a few issues. Except Newfoundland, which could be trouble.
Hang in there.