Essequibo & Demerary 1809 1/2 guilder
Essequibo and Demerary were originally two of three Dutch colonies along the coast of present-day Guyana. They were seized by the British to avoid having them fall into French hands after the French invasion of the Netherlands. They remained in British control through the 1830's, at which point the Netherlands and Great Britain formally divided the region between them, the British taking over the western portion. This mixed colonial origin shows in the coinage: though the portrait of the British monarch is honored on the obverse, the denominations are clearly Dutch. This specimen was lot 2264 in Stack's Bowers NYINC sale (New York, January 2022), where it sold for $8,400. The catalog description[1] noted, "ESSEQUIBO & DEMERARY. 1/2 Guilder, 1809. London Mint. George III. PCGS MS-64. A magnificent near-Gem, this silver minor shows variegated brown tone atop underlying surfaces that contain obvious electric brilliance. Considering the well-known elusiveness of high grade items from this country, a coin that is unsurprisingly the single finest graded by either PCGS or NGC. As such, this piece should certainly be a stand out for the collector focused on Latin American issues or those stuck under the auspices of British rule." This type was struck 1809 only.
Recorded mintage: 64,000.
Specification: 3.88 g, 0.816 fine silver.
Catalog reference: KM-5.
- Michael, Thomas, and Tracy L. Schmidt, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900, 9th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2019.
- 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.
- [1]Orsini, Matt, Kyle Ponterio and Jeremy Bostwick, The 2022 NYINC Sale: World and Ancient Coins, featuring the Mark and Lottie Salton Collection and the Pat Johnson Collection, Costa Mesa, CA: Stack's Bowers LLC, 2021.
Link to: