Jamaican Quarters, mon!

ccrdragon

I don't know anything about Jamaican coins, but a friend of my wife's just got back from there and gave my wife some coins (she knows that I collect coins). I was looking at the coins last night - there were 2 nickles, a dime and 3 quarters - just modern circulated stuff, but the quarters were very interesting.

The first is from 1989, round, Copper/Nickle (I assume) and is about the size of a Kennedy half.
The second is from 1993, 7 sided, Aluminum (maybe) and about the size of a Washington quarter.
The third is from 1996, round, Copper or Zinc and is about the size of a Lincoln penny.

Talk about driving someone nuts trying to keep the change drawer in the cash register straight!

Does anyone know why they made such radical changes in the coins in such a short (7 year span) period of time?!?!?

trozau

Somebody in authority must have been smoking something!

theboz11

heard the Ganja down there was pretty potent.

newsman

It's devaluation, mon.

tbirde56

Heavy inflation and devaluation made the metal used and the minting costs of the coins worth more than their face value. So they reduced size and changed to cheaper alloys: copper-nickel to nickel clad steel to copper plated steel.

ccrdragon

Thanks Tbird! Really must drive the locals nuts to have to look at every coin they get to make sure of the denomination!