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~ Coins in the Colonies ~
As talked about in the book, The Elementary Common Sense of Thomas Paine, the colonist's pockets carried coins from many different countries. England didn't let colonists coin money but, like us today, coins were needed for payrolls, purchases and to make change.
However, coins from different places had different values. Try to imagine if you were to walk into a grocery store today and you tried to pay with money from Spain, Portugal, England, France, among others. You would probably be asked to leave. Yet, knowing the value of different money was commonplace in Colonial America.
For example, the picture above is of a chart printed in a Colonial American newspaper showing the different values of "common coins." The values of the foreign coins are then converted into what they would be worth in "English" money.
l = British Pound ( £ ). Kind of like our dollar today.
s = Shilling
d = pence (or penny)
Although gold and silver were not allowed to be shipped to the colonies, many gold and silver coins from England came over in the pockets of ordinary people visiting or immigrating to the colonies.
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In addition to the numerous scans in the book, the following coins from England also circulated in the colonies:
Gold Guineas and Hibernia half-pence.
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Coins from Spain that circulated in the colonies:
Half Reale, One Reale, Two Reale (some two reales were called Pistereens), Four Reale, Eight Reales and gold Doubloons.
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Coins from France that circulated in the colonies:
Sous, Deniers, and ECUs.
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Coins from Holland (Netherlands) that circulated in the colonies:
Gold Ducats, and Daalders (also called Dog Dollars).
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Coins from Portugal that circulated in the colonies:
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In 1652, desperate for coins, Massachusetts began minting shillings. However, this was not allowed by England and the colonists were told to stop. Cleverly, they continued to mint the coins for years, but never changed the date. This made it appear that no new coins were ever made.
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Coins produced in pure tin were authorized for the colonies in 1688. They did not last long however, tin begins to oxidize and disintegrate, especially in the warm weather of the southern colonies.
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In 1766, colonists celebrated the cancellation of the Stamp Act by issuing these medals, call Pitt tokens. They were in honor of William Pitt, a Member of Parliament who argued for the rights of American Colonists. Many of these tokens also made their way into circulation as change in early America.
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Note: Additional information compiled from the Official Red Book of United States Coins, by R.S.Yeoman, and The Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, by Walter Breen.
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Mr. Wilensky is a fifth-grade teacher in Jefferson County Colorado, where he has been accused of teaching his Colonial America and Revolutionary War classes with enthusiastic zeal. Read More...
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