11/2 Bits Moco

Tobago changed hands between Britain and France repeatedly throughout the late eighteenth century, and the island's chronic shortage of small change forced local authorities into improvised solutions. The 1½ bits "moco" denomination was created by cutting and countermarking Spanish colonial silver — a stopgap measure that reflects just how broken the Caribbean monetary supply had become by the 1790s. Tobago would be ceded permanently to Britain under the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, making this issue one of the last coinage acts of the island's final years of contested sovereignty.