Have you ever really thought about it? Why can that piece of paper get you real tangible things? Why do people want it in trade for a physical item that took labor and time to make. Is money real? That number in your bank account or on your credit card statement, is that money?  What if we no longer had coin and currency, and we all used a credit card like item to change numbers in a computer somewhere, how is that money?

     Let’s back this conversation up to a time before any of us were alive. When people  lived off of the land. For the most part farmers really did not need money, just land. He had two hands he could build his house farm his land and have many kids to help sew seed and harvest his crop.  A way to trade with another farmer or dry goods store  was only necessary once in a while.  If a farmer did not have any money, that did not mean he would starve( unless a famine or other type of natural disaster was in the works.)

      Trade back then had a few problems; Joe may have a pig and Tom may have some wheat, but Joe may not need wheat, he may need corn and how much corn or wheat is  a pig worth. This is the problem that traders had. Originally animal pelts became a way to trade. Everybody accepted that a  pelt had value, and it was easy to carry and to use in a negotiation. Gold and silver existed, but not enough of it was available for everyone to use. The value of a pelt was still at that time a perception of value.  It only had value because someone wanted it. The person that wanted it knew someone else would want it, or he could use it his self. As abstract and in tangible as it is, the knowledge that that pelt was desired by other people made it valuable. But if for some reason it was not accepted, he had a backup. The pelt it’s self would keep him warm. So he had two reasons to want that pelt. It had a concrete value, and a non tangible value; the value of desire.

      Gold and silver are more abstract and we are now moving away from the tangible. The tangible part of gold and silver is that it is pretty and we can craft beautiful objects from the metal.  It can’t keep us warm , so it is less tangible it had no direct ability to improve our living. It’s intangible value of desire is it’s biggest asset. But how can we be sure that guy with the gold has real gold. That is where coins come in. Originally coins were more of a stamp of approval saying that the metal the coin is made of is gold or silver based on some kind of standard. That added another intangible asset. The asset of trust. We now trust that we have gold or silver. Money and it’s value was relatively simple and straight forward.  

       Now lets move a little bit further in time. Paper currency, originally was a piece of paper guaranteeing you that the bank or government had a piece of gold in their vault that they could give you at any time to redeem the paper for real hard gold coin. Now the tangible value has been reduced more, it was still something you can hold. The intangible parts were more important especially the trust. Now we have to trust the government or bank to do what they say they will do.  It’s value was gold but gold was not in your hand. Yet with a bit of weariness people usually accepted it as long as we had faith in the issuing entity.

       Let’s move further into the future, now people are used to using currency and most have forgotten or never lived in the days of bartering.  People are now accepting that currency will buy me what I need.  The general public now see money as a way to get something. The ideas of trust and intrinsic value are now blurred and not really understood, lost to the ways of the past. Gold now cannot be mined quick enough to supply the economy so the issuing entity’s ( the government) now says; We don’t need gold  to back up our currency. We now will tell people that the only way you can buy or sell is if you use our currency, this law will force it’s value. The tangible value is now nothing at all, other than the paper it is printed on. the intangible value of desire and trust are what’s left. Not that it wasn’t important back in the days of trading pelts, but a dollar bill is not going to intrinsically keep you warm.

     Now moving into our present we see numbers whizzing from one computer to another, each number representing the paper we used to have in our hand. We are now trusting that these numbers are not getting dropped or duplicated somewhere changing the preserved value. The government can add and remove numbers at will, and we will still desire  these numbers because it will buy us bread. After all it can still be exchanged for paper currency.

     We are no longer farmers, we cannot grow our own food, most of us have never killed a deer or tanned a hide or sewn our own clothes. We now rely on these numbers for our very survival.    How much different is it now then it was back in the fur trading days. We have shifted almost completely from something tangible to something completely imaginary. In some ways it is light years apart, but the basic element that is common to both currencies is desire (greed). Today we have distilled out “desire” as the single most important part of our society. It is a powerful but fragile human element to rely on.

I wanted to touch on a very complex subject. I cannot explain this whole complex relationship in one small article. My goal is to put into focus the relationship between a colonized society and their monetary system’s relationship to the Mother country.

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During the colonial period from about 1600 to about the 1800’s France, Spain and England. embarked on long voyages to expand their empires.  Once these colonies were established one of the ways to keep the new colony “under the thumb” of the mother country was to control it’s currency. Usually the monarch or some other symbol of power from the mother country would be minted on these coins. The coins would also bear symbols and other devices that  would tie the coin to that colony.  The currency would have some kind of fixed exchange rate with the mother country. Normally the currency from the colony was worth less than the currency from the mother country. This was another device to keep the colony in line.

Remnants of this can be seen today, for instance in Canada they still have Great Britain’s reigning monarch on the obverse of all their coins. Even though today their monetary system is separate from the English pound.

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Canada went through several colonial coins from Viking, French to English, depending on the time period. This is an interesting country to study.

No country was more successful in colonial coinage than Spain. They probably have the best maintained colonial coinage available to collect. The devices of their colonial coins are easy to identify; they used the pillars of Hercules, and the crest of the ruling family on many of the colonial coins. Their coins had the richest content of precious metals of all the worlds coins during the colonial period.

In the North American colonies (United States of America) the monetary system was a mess. In America an eclectic mix of coins  were used as well as wampum. A successful monetary system in the USA did not take over until the mid 1800’s.  Over 70 years after the declaration of independence.

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In 1898 after the Spanish American war, the United states gained Poisson of Puerto Rico and the Philippine islands. The USA was in a unique situation for them. They were now the colonizing country. For a very brief time from about 1900 to 1909 I believe that the us made colonial coinage for Puerto Rico  (I only have one source of information regarding this statement and no pictures of any coins or currency made for Puerto Rico.  I may have to retract this statement. If I find evidence to the contrary The Enforcer full movie ) also the Bank of Puerto Rico made currency valued in American dollars. Although again my reference information is not very good and may be wrong. (If anyone can validate or invalidate the above statement please leave a reply with valid  references I appreciate any help in validating this information ) When the USA took  possession of the Philippine islands they did mint colonial coinage in American pesos. It’s value was fixed at 2 for 1 meaning 2 pesos for every dollar, legal tender in the USA.

My hope is that I have inspired you to research and collect “coins of the realm”. To expand your collection in a colorful way that will allow you to tell the story of how the coin fits into history with the mother country. Or maybe chronicle the different colonizing countries for a given child country. I am personally going to start collecting Spanish colonial coinage from all the Spanish colonies I can find. The Spanish colonial coins holds special relevance to the United States that makes it a great coin for me to collect.  Many collectors in the USA get stagnated with only collecting USA coins. I challenge you to start dabbling in the “Dark Side” of coin collecting. You may find it quite interesting.

Hi it’s Winter again, I know the postings have been a little thin through the summer. But now that I am stuck back in the house I will be writing allot more. Check out my latest postings. 

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Preserving your coins for future generations is a priority for me. Simply because as a coin journeys thorough time, I am only but it’s keeper for a short while. If future generations are going to enjoy this same history that we enjoy now, we must protect the coins we have in our possession.

Coins have a gauntlet of issues to traverse. Lets look at a raw coin sitting on a table. The air is attacking it causing it to tone, the temperature and humidity will also affect how it will tone and may cause active corrosion if the humidity is high enough. When you pick it up you risk etching your finger prints on the coin. These are the main set of issues you have to contend with. 

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Your fingers have acids on them that will, over time, develop like a photograph on the coin. It will not be immediately apparent, but wait a few days and a fingerprint will emerge ready for CSI investigations.  I am not discouraging handling your coins, in fact that is one of the best parts of collecting. Being able to look at a coin raw in your hand is a wonderful experience. But you need to do it correctly. Place the raw coin on a soft nonabrasive cloth. When handling the coin, use either latex finger cots, or white inspection gloves (you can buy inspection gloves very cheep off the Internet by the dozen). Using white gloves allows you more freedom to handle the coin, although, be careful not to rub the coin. This can cause tiny scratches in the fields of the coin. You can ruin a coin’s value if it is a mint state or proof coin.  You should handle a coin by its edge. If you Don’t have gloves you still can handle your coins but only All the Invisible Children ipod by the edge. Proof coins should not be handled at all with out gloves.

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For most coins that you will obtain as a new collector, the cardboard staple down holders are a very good way to protect your coins from the effects of air and humidity. They will help slow down toning, and prevent finger print etching. Although the edge is not protected and  can tone to a dark black color. Be very careful with staple downs because the points of the staple can rip the cover of the coin next to it in your box and cause a horrible scratch. So when stapling down these holders, press the pointed ends of the staple back into the cardboard, rub your finger across the stable and make sure your finger does not catch on any sharp piece of metal. Plastic flips, made with pvc plastic was the bigist mistake coin collectors made for storage. After a while storing your coins in these flips, your coin will become damaged with a green slime coating that may or may not be removable. This can permanently damage your coin, seriously affecting it’s value. Also available for more collectable coins are air tight hard plastic cases of  various types. These offer better protection but toning over time can still occur. Even the sealed slabs from the grading companies are not immune to allowing air in to tarnish your coin. Some advanced collectors will even use desiccant, you know the little beads that say “Do not eat” on the package. This will help lower the humidity and preserve your coins. Although haven’t gone to this extreme.   I do use plastic holders for my more valuable and special coins.

It is not that difficult to take good care of your coins, just pay attention to what you are doing, and store your coins properly. And your grandchildren and their grandchildren will still be able to own and enjoy these coins from their past.