Coins of Hawaii

dan1ecu

Occasionally there is a “coin of Hawaii” up for auction at Heritage. There’s one there now in their Exclusively Internet Auction. Does anyone collect these? Even though Hawaii didn’t become a territory of the United States until 1900, would you consider Hawaiian coins to be a part of US history in the same sense that colonial coins are? What do you think?

Dan

shirohniichan

I bought a dime and half dollar that just arrived today. I don't consider them territorial coins or US coins in any way, but I still find them interesting. The quarters (hapaha) are by far the most common, and they're not even hard to find in unc.

If you're interested in territorials, try Philippino coins minted between 1903 and 1936.

ccr

<< <i>would you consider Hawaiian coins to be a part of US history in the same sense that colonial coins are? >>



The formation of our system of coinage was the next logical step after the colonial coins. By the same model, the Hawaiian economy integrated into ours. So I think that Hawaiian coinage should have a fair representation for, at the very least, historical purposes`.

mr3holesinone

Personally, I consider them to be US coins. The ARE in the Red Book, right? They're a good bang for your buck in my opinion too. The mintage numbers in the Red Book do not take into account the meltings that have taken place. Many of the coins offered have usually been cleaned; beware of that.

Look back in the archives, this was discussed in detail not too long ago (well, maybe this summer?). I believe net mintage figures were noted at that time (they are about a third of what the Red Book says I think).

Conder101

I have a complete set of Hawaiian coins.

They are not US coins. They were a contract coinage produced by the US mint for an independent country. We have produced contract coinages for many countries, that doesn't make those coins US coins. Even if we were to later swallow up those countries it would not make those earlier coins US coins. So the Hawaiian coins did not magicly become US coins either.

shirohniichan

I concur.

I find it funny that some people collect the Kingdom of Hawaii coins as if they were US coins, yet yet they don't consider coins struck at the US Mint in Manila for use in a US territory to be US coins.

All I need is the akahi dala to finish my set.

mr3holesinone

Oops, guess I'm out numbered on whether they're US coins. Here are some mintage figures I hurriedly took down last night from Breen's Encyclopedia:

Denomination, Red Book mintage figures, Breen's net mintage figures

Penny 100,000 11,595+ Proofs, I think
Nickel unlisted (20 proofs)
Dime 250,000 249,921
1/8 unlisted 20+
Quarter 500,000 242,600
Half 700,000 87,755
Dollar 500,000 46,348

I believe the nickels are 20 proof only, I didn't write this down and hopefully got it right from memory; the other figures I did jot down quickly.

As you can see, the half and dollar were really turned in and melted down compared to the other issues. It was noted that there was a small hoard of BU rolls of quarters found in New York I think many years ago, thus, quarters shouldn't be as rare as you would think compared to the others.

shirohniichan

I heard the dimes were commonly used as jewelry, so unimpaired examples aren't cheap. There's a big price jump between VF and XF, so be careful when buying "XF" dimes.

Spooly

We have a member named .... James that collects coins from Hawaii.... he lives there too! I will pull up his handle if I can find it.

paigowjohnny

As a former Hawaii resident, I'd like to have a couple...particularly the bigger sized ones...but can't bring myself to pay the price....would also love to get a Hawaiian commem...but it would be the most expensive one...