Connecting to my heritage through coins

nice VK.

i'll post this again, since you mentioned spanish coinage circulating broadly. these were coins that belonged to slaves owned by andrew jackson, so they circulated all the way to nashville TN.




and some other related stuff.

spanish baby king!





and my total mess spanish collonial coins, 17th century...









i do have one spanish ancestor, though his parents were italian. he was born on a spanish ship while his parents were coming to the united states in the early 1900s, so i guess technically, he was born a spanish citizen... so i've been told anyway.

 

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i'm like 100% Chinese, so here are a few fake coins of which I do not own(thankfully)

 

LOL!

 

LOL

You have to love a man with a sense of humor.....

 

Thanks for the thread VK.

One of my side collections contains Leprosy colony coins. In the early 20th Century, there were Leprosy colonies in the following locations:
Brazil - Colonia Santa Tereza Leper Colony
Columbia - Lazaretto Leper Colony
Japan - Nagashima-Aisei
Panama – Palo Seco Leper Colony
Philippines - Culion Leper Colony
USA - Carville Louisiana and Pearl City Hawaii
Venezuela – Maricaibo, Isla de Providencia, and Cabo Blanco

It was believed that Leprosy (Hansen’s disease) was highly contagious and that it might be transmitted through the coins & currency that were handled by the infected individuals. For this reason, special money was made to circulate in the colonies. (Except the USA colonies (or leprosariums) which used regular US currency). Some of these leprosy colony moneys were government issued and some are considered privately issued tokens today. There were a few compelling reasons for issuing special money at the colonies. (1) It was obviously an attempt to keep the area government money out of the hands of the inmates. (2) It made it difficult for inmates to purchase things like rum from the black market dealers. (3) It also made it difficult for an inmate to save up cash and orchestrate an escape.

Here is an example from Columbia's Lazaretto Leper Colony:

 

WOW, that is a bit of info I would had never known!

 

Fantastic write-up and cool coin! One of my best friends has Columbian heritage (parents from Columbia, he was born in New Jersey) and I linked him to this topic. He was very impressed!

 

Wonderful research and passion in your quest. Totally enjoyed your post and the materials presented. Thank you.

 

Couldnt help but revive my thread; I figured this fit here as well, since it can be considered a Spanish coin. My ancestors (Hispano-Roman and/or Visigothic) living in Spain around the 7th century AD might have come across tremisses like mine, so this is another one that I feel a familial connection to.

Sisebut, Visigothic Kingdom
AV tremissis
Obv: + SISEBVTVS REX, bust facing
Rev: + TOLETO PIVS, bust facing
Mint: Toledo
Date: 612-621 AD
Ref: Miles 183a

 

Wow, what a beauty. I see what you mean about the connection. It is indeed possible that some of our ancestors might have handled a coin like that, or maybe that very same coin (provided we had filthy rich ancestors or mint worker ancestors).