The Strange "Recycled" Coins of the New World

In the days prior to the Euro dollar replacing some foreign currencies, visitors to the West Indies (Caribbean) regularly exchanged their Dollars, Pounds, Deutschemarks, Lira or Yen for local currency. In many instances it's the Eastern Caribbean Dollar, legal tender on St. Kitts and Nevis; Antigua, St. Lucia, Montserrat, Grenada, Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

And chances are more than a few tourists return home with a few of these coins as conversation pieces and mementos of their visit.

But it wasn't always so. The convenience of having a local currency for commerce simply didn't exist for many islands in the West Indies until the mid-Nineteenth Century. So they simply 'recycled' other nations' money by countermarking them with their own identification.

Actually, the idea wasn't original and had been practiced world-wide for centuries whenever coins were needed but not easily available. Countermarking a foreign coin made it acceptable as legal tender and established its value in the place it was stamped while at the same time often made it worthless in the issuing country. The intent was that the coin would remain and continue to circulate in the place where it was countermarked.

The process involved striking an identifying impression (usually the initials or name of the confiscating colony, territory, etc.) and, in many cases, a value, on obverse surface of the particular coin.

There are currently more than 100 different known countermarked series by Caribbean islands, including three by St. Kitts and nine by Nevis. Another 41 still remain unattributed to any island.

St. Kitts, settled in 1623, was the first English colony in the West Indies. All English language colonization that followed in the Caribbean Sea can be traced back to St. Kitts, which is also identified as St. Christopher in early records and maps.

As the "Mother Colony" St. Kitts, and its sister island Nevis hardly two miles away across the channel, probably had a larger accumulation of coins during those years due to its initial favorable advantage from trade with Europe. The two islands would eventually join together and form the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.

The earliest known examples of St. Kitts and Nevis countermarked coins are believed to be circa 1790, during the sister islands halcyon days. For decades before, and decades afterward, several hundred merchant ships per year crossed the Atlantic from Europe and made port in the harbor of Basseterre, St. Kitts where their leathered sailors freely spent their coins on rum, wine, women, and song. On these and other sugar producing islands rum was often easier to get than water. On St. Kitts and Nevis, at least, circulating coinage of several European nations was reportedly plentiful.

Meanwhile, Nevis' Bath Hotel had mineral springs with water that rose as high as 108 degrees. The property once accommodated 50 overnight guests at a time in its grand rooms. According to some accounts the building also housed a high-stakes casino. Others say there was a brief period when the grand building was a popular bordello for seafarers. Old-timers on the island tell stories of local people as late as the 1920s finding one or two coins, sometimes clusters, just below the soil of the once manicured grounds of the Bath Hotel.

The springs, and hotel, were world famous in 1778 and attracted the wealthy from Europe as well as America who came "to take the waters". Called at the time "the most ambitious structure ever erected in the West Indies" the hotel was on a bluff overlooking the magical water supply.

Though it is doubtful that all this transient activity contributed to a shortage of coins on St. Kitts and Nevis, the two islands briefly joined other islands in the practice of countermarking.

There are three different St. Kitts countermarks on five different coin denominations. Most frequently seen is the incuse initial S struck three times on each of the following countermarked denominations: one-half, one-quarter, and one-eighth segments of Spanish 8 Reale pieces (the famous 'Pieces of Eight' of pirate lore). As this suggests, these large silver dollar-size coins were cut into pieces to make small change. Both a single incuse S countermark and the incuse dual initials SK are found on Cayene 2 Sous coins.

The Nevis countermarked coins are for the most part small, well-worn silver or copper coins, usually Spanish reales or twelve Sous coins from the Isle du Vent. Less frequently seen are coin-shaped silver bullion pieces. There are at least seven different varieties of countermarked coins saying NEVIS in an oblong, incuse depression and having the numeric values (4,6,7,9) also stamped underneath.

Some years ago an eighth example, an unusual, possibly unique piece, was offered in a European coin auction. The coin was a Spanish reale with a countermarked heart-shaped indent which included the number 9 above the letter N. It was attributed to Nevis and brought a bid of US$100. Another unusual coin to carry a Nevis countermark is an Irish Halfpenny bearing the likeness of George III.

Though not considered very valuable by numismatic standards, examples of coins with either the S.K. or NEVIS countermark are among the rarest of West Indian countermarks and difficult to locate. There is no record of exactly how many coins were countermarked on St. Kitts and Nevis.

But what caused this shortage of coins in the first place? Why didn't the West Indian islands or colonies in America simply strike their own coins? Well, one of the American colonies did, and St. Kitts and Nevis didn't miss the opportunity to confiscate those coins for circulation either!

First of all coinage of any sort was in limited supply in the English colonies of the New World during the 1600s and would continue to be for nearly 200 years. As a matter of fact, Spanish milled dollars circulated widely in the United States, and some Caribbean islands, until the 1850s, nearly sixty years after the U.S. began minting its own coins. As already mentioned, St. Kitts was England's "Mother Colony" in the Caribbean and the recipient of considerable trans-Atlantic ship traffic that resulted in a goodly number of circulating coins. But the situation elsewhere in the West Indies was somewhat more desperate.

The root cause of the shortage for English possessions was the Crown itself which forbid all English colonies in the New World from minting their own coins. Minting coin of the realm, you see, was the prerogative of the King, no ifs, ands, or buts, period. The English subjects in the Caribbean and America had to make do with whatever coins, British or otherwise, trickled their way through trade across the sea.

The shortage wasn't limited to English islands in the West Indies. It had become so bad in America that in 1637 The General Court of Massachusetts petitioned the King for relief. However, England needed all the money it could raise at home for the pending war between the Puritans and the Royalists. The colonies were told to fend for themselves. Their first reaction, that same year, was to legalize and put a value on Indian wampum: "Wampamege should passe at 6 a penny for any sume under 12d." [sic].

But in 1652, the Royal prerogative notwithstanding, Massachusetts took what many believe was the first act of open revolt and did, in fact mint its own coins. Other North American and Caribbean colonies and possessions watched from the sidelines. Many colonies in the West Indies, Kititians and Nevisians included, cheered the New Englanders on, but refrained from following such a obviously rebellious step.

Simplistic and crude, the first Massachusetts coins were hardly more than stamped slugs. One side carried the initials NE (for New England) while the reverse had Roman numerals suggesting value. They are extremely rare and valuable today.

A second, more elaborately designed series, with appropriate language included three denominations struck in silver: threepence; sixpence; and shilling. Different central designs on each were a Willow Tree; Oak Tree; and Pine Tree designs. All were dated 1653 and the silver bullion was procured principally from the West Indies.

When news of this infringement on the Royal prerogative to mint money reached England the King nearly had a fit. The Bay Staters promptly received a serious warning and agreed to discontinue the practice or they'd find themselves headless.

However, displaying an industrious flare, the Massachusetts colony continued to mint silver coins until 1682 but all pieces carried the date 1652. This was in an effort to claim that no "new" coins were being produced and that these had been minted prior to the warning from England!

In 1672 Nevis granted legal tender status to Massachusetts Pine Tree Shilling coins (and presumably the others as well), though nothing is presently known about St. Kitts following suit. The Nevis action came two years after Montserrat and Antigua also legally accepted Pine Tree Shillings.

But back to the 'recycled' countermarked coins:

The late Princess Diana visited Nevis over the Christmas Holidays in 1992-93 and, to the surprise of some locals, asked about the countermarked coins of Nevis during a visit to the island's Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson Museum. That visit, the details of which have rarely been reported, is the opening chapter in the book "To Kill A Princess, The Diana Plot" (ISBN 097105603X).

Unless you are an expert it can be difficult to tell some of them apart. For instance, at various times St. Maarten, Montserrat and Martinique all used the initial M while the initial S was used on some St. Kitts as well as other islands, etc.

Even though the Spanish had established a mint at Mexico City as early as 1535, Haiti, which became independent from European rule in 1804, was the only location in the region to produce its own coinage.

The French and Dutch possessions in the West Indies faired somewhat better than the English colonies. In 1670 an edict by Louis XIV allowed for the striking of coins for "New France". Denmark minted and shipped large quantities of secular coins to its Caribbean islands for use there.

It was coinage from these various destinations that found its way to St. Kitts and Nevis and other English islands and represent the bulk of the coins which were countermarked.

Though both St. Kitts and Nevis countermarked coins and Pine Tree Shilling coins have been found locally in recent years the chance of locating or purchasing a St. Kitts or Nevis countermarked coin while visiting either island is virtually non-existent. The relatively few specimens that exist are in museums, private collections, or secretly kept by the finder. It is from the latter that pieces infrequently appear at coin auctions.