Tag: #history

Collection update October ’17

My acquisitions this month hail mainly from Europe and the Americas.  There is also a strong theme of colonialism and empire as many of the coins I have gotten date from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Several of the coins were in very good condition, like the Uruguayan 4 Centesimos, and the Swedish krona in the bottom right corner of the pictures.  I was also pleased with silver Russian coin on the bottom left as it is the first non-copper Imperial Russian coin I now own.  However, a couple of the coins in the next picture are what I wish to focus on this month:

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Starting from the top left we have a Portuguese 40 reis, a Mexican 1/2 real, and a German East African heller.  The Portuguese coin dates from 1822, and is a significant date in the history of Portugal.  During the previous year (1821) the current king, John VI, had previously returned from exile in Brazil due to the Napoleonic Wars and subsequent revolt and revolution.  He was invited back to Portugal to reign as king, but due to a shift in political thinking and demands made during the previous revolution, John was forced to sign a new constitution handing over several key royal perogatives to the newly formed government.  He did, but his wife refused resulting in her being stripped of all royal and political powers.  The following year, Brazil declared herself independent from Portugal, and John’s son Pedro crowned himself emperor of the newly independent empire.  It is said that whilst in exile in Brazil, John showed a hint of prescience and told his son that Brazil would soon become independent and he should declare himself as ruler before another adventurer does.

The Mexican coin also has it’s roots in colonial empire, and also can be linked to another struggle for independence.  The coin dates from 1813 when Mexico was still a colony of Spain.  However, three years prior to the minting of this coin unrest spilled into violence as a revolt led by a priest called Hidalgo rose up against the injustices suffered by the poor of Mexico.  This resulted in protracted fighting and violence between Mexican revolutionaries and the Spanish imperial administration.  In 1811 Hidalgo is captured by the Spanish army and executed, and is succeeded by José María Morelos.  Who in 1813 convened the Congress of Chilpancingo which issued the first formal declaration of independence for Mexico.  Fighting would continue for a further 8 years until on the 27th September 1821 Mexico would gain her independence as a new empire under the name of New Spain.

Finally we have the German East African Heller.  There is nothing special in regards to this coin, but I wanted to include it as it is the only coin from Africa I received in this small collection.  It also fits the over-arching theme of colonialism and imperial powers this blog post has decided to explore.  Sadly, this coin does not have ties to any independence movement.  In 1909, German East Africa comprised of Burundi, Rwanda and parts of mainland Tanzania.  These regions under German control suffered much like the rest of Africa under the colonial powers, with harsh regimes and indifference to the native populations.  Several revolts were put down during the German administration with the last in 1907. Control of the colony was sunsequently split between the British and Belgians after Germany’s loss in WWI.  The regions themselves would not gain independence from imperial administration until several decades after WWII.

Evading the law!

Another talk about token coinage again this time.  Today I would like to focus on a British token coinage issued during the late 18th century called ‘evasion tokens’.

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Now the picture above (although blurry, and the token itself quite worn), shows one of the many different types of evasion tokens which were minted during this period.  So why do these things exist?

During the late 18th century in Britain counterfeiting was rampant, with some reports saying that only 2/5th’s of the coins in general circulation were actually genuine.  These figures come from around 1753, by 1771 it was getting out of control, and magistrates were applying more and more pressure to find the counterfeiters and destroy the minting machines.  It was then that the counterfeiters found a loophole in the law which allowed them to continue making the fake coinage.

The laws at the time stated that only ‘Regal’ coinage was covered by the counterfeiting laws.  Thus, if a coin was not an ‘exact’ copy of one issued by the government, then the law is technically not being broken, and thus any punishment is evaded.  They were not coins, but tokens.  Hence the name ‘evasion tokens’.  Most of these tokens were thus changed to suit the work-around in the law.  So a large number of figures replaced King George, such as Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, and even George Washington (the example in the photo shows Pope Gregory II).  George III wasn’t completely removed either, with his facing changed, or the legend around his bust altered.  The legends themselves were often nonesense or humourous in nature.  With some saying ‘Brittania Rules’, ‘These Bonny Isles’, ‘Bonny Girls’ and so on.  There were some instances of company names being included on the reverse of some tokens too.  Speaking of the reverse, these were also a target for changes, with Britannia being slightly altered, or replaced with the Irish harp entirely.  The legend was also subject to change, with similar epithets to those placed on the obverse, often more outlandish with examples of ‘Englands Glory’ and ‘Hilarias’ being used.

The tokens themselves were often widely accepted by the populace at the time for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, there was a dire need of small change at the time, due to indifference by the government towards a copper coinage.  It was a widely held belief that copper was not a fit enough metal to strike a ‘regal’ coinage, and thus striking copper coins was not an especially important activity for the Royal Mint to pursue.  Secondly, many of the native provincial Britons were illiterate and if the ‘coin’ on offer looked somewhat genuine and something they were used to, they were happy to accept it.

The earliest examples of evasion tokens date from the mid-1770’s, but the majority seem to come from between 1795 and 1800.  There are thousands of different designs out there, and were first started to be catalogued in 1892 by Atkins, which then wasn’t updated until in 1987 by Cobwright, with a further revision in 1993 (A walk in the Monkolokian Forest in search of the Spiny Fubbaduck – yes, that is the title of the work by Cobwright).