British West Indies 1820 1/4 dollar
This specimen was lot 20183 in Stack's Bowers NYINC sale (New York, January 2020), where it sold for $2,400. The catalog description[1] noted, "BRITISH WEST INDIES. 1/4 Dollar, 1820. London Mint. George IV. NGC PROOF-63. Anchor money. A VERY RARE proof offering of this colonial type, the present example exhibits choice surfaces fully awash in an alluring cabinet tone, while some deeper hues envelope and highlight the peripheral devices. A great opportunity for a tough coin, with just two graded finer in the NGC census." These colonial issues were made 1820-22 and are rather scarce in nice condition. The odd alloy (instead of the usual .925 sterling) suggests they were made from melted down Spanish dollars. The British West Indies included Jamaica, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad and the miscellaneous islands in between. Enormously prosperous in the eighteenth century, their economies would shrink considerably in the mid-nineteenth century with slave emancipation and the introduction of the sugar beet to Europe.
Recorded mintage: 100,000 + proofs.
Specification: 0.892 fine silver.
Catalog reference: KM-3; Prid-9.
- Byrne, Ray, Coins and Tokens of the Caribees, Decatur, IL: Jess Peters, Inc., 1975.
- Pridmore, F., The Coins of the British Commonwealth of Nations to the end of the Reign of George VI 1952: Part 3, Bermuda, British Guiana, British Honduras and the British West Indies, London: Spink & Son, 1965.
- Michael, Thomas, and Tracy L. Schmidt, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900, 9th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2019.
- [1]Orsini, Matt, Richard Ponterio and Kyle Ponterio, The January 2020 NYINC Sale: Ancient Coins, World Coins & Paper Money, Santa Ana, CA: Stack's Bowers LLC, 2019.
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