Featured Coins and Paper Money from Leper Colonies

Discussion in 'World Coins' started by svessien, Feb 27, 2020.

  1. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    Hi all

    I'm currently reading "The Numismatic Aspects of Leprosy" (yes, there is such a thing) by McFadden/Grost/Marr.
    It's an interesting book, listing more than 1000 different tokens and bank notes used in leper colonies in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Danish West Indies, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Panama, Philippines, Thailand and Venezuela.

    With the exception of tokens from Colombia, The Philippines and Venezuela, these tokens are very rare, and there are few collectors. The background for issuing them were threefold: To prevent spreading the disease through coinage (which was unrealistic), preventing the patients at the colonies from getting legal tender with which they could escape the colony, and preventing black market transactions with outside merchants.

    I only have one Colombia 50 centavo and a Venezuela fractional Bolivar. I would love to see more of these tokens, if any of you have some in your collection.

    Venezuela lepra.jpg


    The book sites a poem by Gilbert S. Perez published in "The Numismatist" September 1946. So will I.

    Leper Tokens

    I left the old home
    Filled with the burning ambition
    To get somewhere
    To be something
    I haunted the columned halls
    of the University
    And hung the framed degrees,
    Parchment after parchment
    On the walls of my room
    But where did I go?

    To a little seagirt isle
    Where they pumped
    Ounces upon ounces
    Of choolmugra oil
    Into my veins
    What was I?

    Jingling in my pockets
    The dull nickel coins
    The precious tokens
    Of the unclean
    I shuffle along
    The rock strewn beach
    Something horrible
    Something to be shunned
    And with the sickening
    Loneliness in my heart

    I fling
    A full handful
    Of the gray discs
    Far out into
    The rippling waves
    A thank offering
    A sacrifice
    To Kwan Yin
    The all-merciful


    Colombia lepra.JPG
     
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  3. Steve66

    Steve66 Coin People

    I only have a few from the Philippines

    DC3DB64E-F7B0-4972-A1CA-6669AA20F5F3.jpeg CA5D86F1-8FF0-4618-A7B7-0E32635CD3F6.jpeg

    Cool poem... thanks for sharing
     
    Seattlite86, GeorgeM, Chris B and 3 others like this.
  4. alurid

    alurid Well-Known Member

    Venezuela, 16mm, 1.53g, brass, KM#L19.
    20200227_192706.jpg
    20200227_192652.jpg
    Just got this little one last fall.
     
  5. Muzyck

    Muzyck Rabbits!

    Philippines Culion Island leper colony peso, 1925

    Philippines Culion Island leper colony peso 1925 obv.jpg
    Philippines Culion Island leper colony peso 1925 rev.jpg
     
  6. Muzyck

    Muzyck Rabbits!

    Culion 20 centavos, 1922

    Culion obverse 20 centavos 1922.jpg Culion reverse 20 centavos 1922.jpg
     
  7. Muzyck

    Muzyck Rabbits!

    Venezuela Lazareto Nacional Maracaibo, 1913

    Venezuela Lazareto Nacional Maracaibo 1913 obv.jpg
    Venezuela Lazareto Nacional Maracaibo 1913 rev.jpg

    Venezuela Lazareto Nacional Maracaibo, 1916

    Venezuela Lazareto Nacional Maracaibo 1916 obv.jpg
    Venezuela Lazareto Nacional Maracaibo 1916 rev.jpg
     
  8. Muzyck

    Muzyck Rabbits!

    Venezuela Lazareto Isla de Providencia, 1939

    Venezuela Lazareto Isla de Providencia 1939 obv.jpg
    Venezuela Lazareto Isla de Providencia 1939 rev.jpg
     
  9. Muzyck

    Muzyck Rabbits!

    Colombia Lazereto 50 Centavos, 1901

    Lazereto 50 Centavos reverse 1901.JPG Lazereto 50 Centavos obverse 1901.JPG
     
  10. Muzyck

    Muzyck Rabbits!

    Colombia Lazareto 2 Centavos, 1921

    Colombia Lazareto 5 Centavos 1921 obverse.jpg
    Colombia Lazareto 5 Centavos 1921 reverse.jpg

    Colombia Lazareto 50 Centavos, 1921

    Colombia Lazareto 50 Centavos 1921 obv.jpg
    Colombia Lazareto 50 Centavos 1921 rev.jpg

    Colombia Lazareto 50 Centavos 1928

    Colombia Lazareto 50 Centavos 1928 obv.jpg
    Colombia Lazareto 50 Centavos 1928 rev.jpg
     
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  11. Hommer

    Hommer Curator of Semi Precious Coinage

    I don't have a photo with me but i have several Culion coins in my collection mainly because they were minted by the US Mint for a US Territory. I used to think that there weren't many people collecting the type, but the auctions for them prove otherwise. They can be a tough win.
     
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  12. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    So here we have coins from the leper colonies in Colombia, Philippines and Venezuela. The most common ones, although they are scarce too.
    I found a good site for the Panama leper colony coins, stating 10 to 24 known examples of each denomination:
    http://www.coins-of-panama.com/paloseco.html

    Based on McFadden et al., I'll site the mintage of the coins posted on this thread to the extent that they have researched:

    Philippines:
    1 peso 1925: 20 000
    20 centavos 1922: 10 155

    Colombia:
    50 centavos 1901: 25 560
    50 centavos 1921: 120 000
    50 centavos 1928: 50 000

    2 centavos 1921: 350 000

    Venezuela: Mintage stated as N/A by McFadden/Grost/Marr.

    The rest of these tokens are extremely rare, it seems. Brazil, Japan and China seems to be the "easiest" ones. I think we can forget about Nigeria and the Danish West Indies. :)
     
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  13. gxseries

    gxseries Coin Collector

    Japan is absurdly hard if not rare. They rarely appear in the market for starters. Never heard of Chinese ones.
     
  14. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    I meant to say «easiest among the rest», but they are all hard to get. China has used plastic tokens in colonies/hospitals up to our time. Unsurprisingly, this is not talked about a lot from the Chinese side.
     
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