Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1/2 Penny
| Issuer | Barbados |
|---|---|
| Year | 1792 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Round |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Left-facing crowned bust of a young figure, the effigy wearing an ornate Tudor-style crown decorated with fleurs-de-lis, a cross pattée, and foliate scrollwork. The hair is rendered in tight curls visible beneath the crown. The field is plain, and the legend I·SERVE appears in raised Latin letters along the lower rim beneath the truncation. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Barbados had no official colonial coinage in the eighteenth century — the island relied on a chaotic mixture of cut Spanish silver, countermarked pieces, and whatever copper tokens merchants could import. This piece is a privately issued token, almost certainly commissioned by local merchants or planters to address the chronic shortage of small change that plagued the Caribbean economy throughout the 1790s. The Lyall reference places it firmly within the documented series of plantation and merchant tokens circulating in the British West Indies during this period.
The Prid and KM attributions confirm it as a recognized type rather than an obscure local curiosity.