Featured Mark Twain's Turkish Penny and the Gold Napoleon

Discussion in 'World Coins' started by willieboyd2, Dec 14, 2015.

  1. willieboyd2

    willieboyd2 First Class Poster

    The United States plans to issue commemorative coins in 2016 to honor writer Mark Twain.
    The coins planned are a silver dollar and a five-dollar gold coin.
    United States (US) Mint photographs:
    http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/?action=photo#MarkTwain

    In 1867 Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) joined a ship excursion to Europe and the Middle East and published a very popular book about his travels, The Innocents Abroad, in 1869.
    He made several trips to Europe and published another travel book, A Tramp Abroad, in 1880.

    In A Tramp Abroad, he writes about an incident which occurred during his 1867 trip when he accidently gave a blind beggar a gold coin instead of a copper coin and his attempts to retrieve the gold coin.

    The episode with the showman reminds me of a dark chapter in my history. I once robbed an aged and blind beggar-woman of four dollars—in a church. It happened this way. When I was out with the Innocents Abroad, the ship stopped in the Russian port of Odessa and I went ashore, with others, to view the town. I got separated from the rest, and wandered about alone, until late in the afternoon, when I entered a Greek church to see what it was like. When I was ready to leave, I observed two wrinkled old women standing stiffly upright against the inner wall, near the door, with their brown palms open to receive alms. I contributed to the nearer one, and passed out.

    I had gone fifty yards, perhaps, when it occurred to me that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard that the ship's business would carry her away at four o'clock and keep her away until morning. It was a little after four now. I had come ashore with only two pieces of money, both about the same size, but differing largely in value — one was a French gold piece worth four dollars, the other a Turkish coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden and horrified misgiving, I put my hand in my pocket, now, and sure enough, I fetched out that Turkish penny!​

    The "French gold piece worth four dollars" had to be a French 20 Franc coin, commonly called a "Napoleon", as it had a portrait of the French king Napoleon III on it.
    It was 21mm in diameter and weighed around 6.40gm.
    Napoleons circulated widely as trade coins in the Middle East at the time.

    [​IMG]
    France gold 20 Francs 1863 "Napoleon" 21mm

    The "Turkish penny", "Turkish coin worth two cents and a half", "both about the same size", is harder to identify.

    Turkey, or the Ottoman Empire then, had a monetary system based on the Piastre or Qirsh which was worth around US five cents. A Piastre was divided into 40 Paras.

    The Innocents Abroad mentions the worth of a Piastre in this description of a guide:

    ...he called for remuneration -- said he hoped the gentlemen would give him a trifle in the way of a few piastres (equivalent to a few five cent pieces).​

    A Turkish coin worth 2-1/2 cents would be a 20 Para coin worth one-half of a Piastre.
    Turkey made two types of 20 Para coin then, a very small silver coin (14mm) and a large copper coin (32mm).
    Neither coin would be close in size to the 21mm French gold coin.

    [​IMG]
    Turkey silver 20 Para AH 1277 Abdul Aziz regnal year 2 (1862) 14mm
    This coin is smaller than the US three-cent coin.

    [​IMG]
    Turkey copper 20 Para AH 1277 Abdul Aziz regnal year 4 (1864) 32mm
    This coin is the size of a British Penny and close in size to a US Large Cent.

    Turkey did make a 23mm copper 5 Para coin which was close in size to the 21mm Napoleon and was worth around one-half of a US cent.

    [​IMG]
    Turkey copper 5 Para AH 1277 Abdul Aziz regnal year 4 (1864) 23mm

    Could Mark Twain's recollection of the "Turkish penny" have been a 5 Para coin?

    :)
     
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  3. chrisild

    chrisild Coin Collector

    Cannot really add anything wise, sorry. (And looking the term "Turkish Penny" up yielded results that ... oh well. :) ) But it would be interesting to learn more about what that coin possibly was.

    Christian
     
  4. scottishmoney

    scottishmoney Buh bye

    If you have ever given far more than you intended - I have, you just buck up and figure your inner heart took over and not ask for the donation back.
     
  5. John Anthony

    John Anthony Ultracrepidarian

    Good read, thank you!
     
  6. Siberian Man

    Siberian Man Senior Member

    Mark Twain is one of my favourite writers. I have eight-volume collection of his compositions. He was very famous and popular in USSR. Alas, the youth seldom reads classics today. My son refuse to read a books of Fenimore Cooper and Thomas Mayne Reid - though I adored these authors!
    Alas, everything flows, everything changes. As ancient philosophers spoke.
     
  7. donwall57

    donwall57 Active Member

    I love Mark Twain's writings of his adventures. I read "Roughing It: Six Months In The Sandwich Islands." Better known now as Hawaii. Mark, or "Sam" as it were, had to return to the mainland to write for a paper, I think. Twain swore he'd return to the islands he was so taken with, but that would forever remain a distant, and pious dream. But for his story, and my dream as well, and a literal flip of a coin (a 72 D lmc as I recall) I did move to Hawaii to live, for I could not afford a vacation there. :smuggrin: See? It was related. . .Cointalk, you know?
     
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