Anyone know of any good books for them? NOt necceraly for varieties or anything, but just to learn about them and their history. Is their more outside of the Redbook? Also, anyone know of any good books/links on the history of our first coinage and how we got the ideas for the designs? stainless
Sorry, but Liberia has never been a US colony and FWIW, their coinage came from England at least through the mid 1960's.
The History of the United States Mint and it's Coinage is an excellent book. It's in chronological order from the beginning. Has a ton of great info and pics too. It may not be as in depth on colonials as you're looking for but it does talk about them and how a lot of our coinage came into being from the start. I borrowed it from a friend and read it cover to cover. I liked it so much I bought my own just to have it in my library.
Never in any official capacity, I know. But the colonists did primarily come from this country. Close enough for me.
Not really. The Americans WENT to Liberia. I am unaware of slaves being collected from there, but that is where the freed slave returned and their descendants ran the country through the 1970's.
Exactly. The American Colonization Society established colonies in Liberia primarily for freed slaves. I was a bit unclear before, lemme rephrase: "Never in any official capacity, I know. But the colonists in Liberia did primarily come from this the United States. Close enough for me."
You really want to know the background history behind the various US colonial issues then the book you want is Early Coins of America by Sylvester Crosby.
You betcha ! And the good news is... these are NEW books which won't play havoc with your bank account ! "In Yankee Doodle's Pocket" - Will Nipper "Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins" - Bowers / Whitman Both HIGHLY recommended. A relief from the ultra high price of so many numismatic books.
Slightly OT but you might wanna look at Seaby's "Coins of England and the United Kingdom" for coins that should have circulated in the colonies, and occasionally did.
Much to my surprise - and delight - this book is readily available and not terribly expensive. Amazon. Sold !
Off topic ? Not at all ! I bet that's a great book, and it shows how complicated the entire coins / commerce things was in colonial America.
Stainless, I have a book "Tables of Interest" which was published in Edinburgh in 1806 that has an exchange rate table for various foreign coins, I will have to image it so you can see it. It gives you an idea of what was worth what against other currencies. Coins back then tended to circulate based more on their merits of actual silver or gold value rather than whom issued them.
I'm currently reading "America's Money, America's Story" by Richard Doty which discusses the topic in a lot of detail, and contains lots of photos of the coins. It's an excellent book and easy to read.
At the KY state show this past weekend and dealer there had five boxes of books from collections he had purchased. There were three copies of Crosby in those boxes, I picked up a 1945 printing for $15. The other two were more recent reprints and were priced at around $30 apiece.
To bad, I had one for sale. An original 1965 reprint by the Token and Medal Society. At any Numismatic Literature Auction this easily brings $100.00. These are difficult to locate as well. This reprint will always hold it's value. Good reading with your purchase 900fine.
Here are a couple online references: A Project of the Robert H. Gore, Jr. Numismatic Endowment University of Notre Dame, Department of Special Collections by Louis Jordan Images Coordinated by James C. Spilman and the Colonial Newsletter Foundation http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ “Coins & Currency in Colonial America” The Collections of the Colonial Williamsburg http://www.history.org/history/museums/coinExhibit/ The other good resources that have not been mentioned are the archives of past collections of Roper, Garrett, Norweb, etc. and the current collections being assembled that are well documented online...like The Maddy Rae http://www.maddyrae.net/colonial.cfm in poster format http://www.maddyrae.net/posterview_colonial.html with info http://www.maddyrae.net/webview_colonial.html cro's photo type set http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=584602&highlight_key=y&keyword1=early
