1793 Penny

The 1793 Bermuda penny is the only circulating coinage ever struck specifically for Bermuda during the colonial era. By the late 18th century the islands were running on a chaotic mix of Spanish silver, British copper, and various worn foreign pieces, and the colonial assembly petitioned London for a dedicated small-change coinage. The result was a one-year copper penny authorized by the Crown in 1793 and struck at the Soho Mint of Matthew Boulton in Birmingham - the same workshop that would soon revolutionize British coinage with the famous "Cartwheel" pennies of 1797.

Total mintage was only 72,000 pieces. The coin saw extremely heavy use in tropical conditions, and the vast majority of survivors are worn smooth, corroded, or both - making genuine Mint State examples a real condition rarity.

The obverse carries the laureate bust of George III right with the legend GEORGIVS III D[EI] G[RATIA] REX. The reverse - the design that made the type iconic - shows a fully rigged three-masted English merchantman under sail, the legend BERMUDA above and the date 1793 in exergue, with smaller vessels visible on the horizon. It is one of the great ship designs of British colonial numismatics, and the only contemporary coin to show how Bermuda actually saw itself: as a maritime, ship-building, ocean-trading colony.

This NGC MS 62 BN example has the warm, even chocolate-brown surfaces and reflective fields that the Soho copper develops when properly preserved - none of the porosity, salt corrosion, or pitting that disfigure most surviving 1793 Bermuda pennies. A one-year type, a single-design colonial issue, struck by Boulton, in honest Mint State.