<<<<<SUNDAY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY COLONIALS>>>>
ambro51
Posts: 13,949 ✭✭✭✭✭
My first opportunity to post on this topic but I know many of you have these sixteen hundred something survivors so let's SHOW them oFF! These pieces represent a different time, a different World. America, with Virginia the most populated area, with Maryland and Boston following, had a population of only 150 thousand in 1680. Life was exceedingly difficult and half native born people died before age 20. They were burning witches in Salem. Slavery was everywhere. The economy was essentially tobacco based. Indian were sometimes your friends, other times they sliced deep into your forehead and ripped your scalp off to the back of your head. Disease was not understood, medical supplies of the day frequently not available.. It was a cold hard unforgiving life and those hardy souls who hacked out this New World deserve our Admiration. Here's an example of an original 1688 striking of Holts American Plantations Token. Authorized during the lasts months of his Reign, it shows King James II on a rearing horse. The reverse shows the united crowns of England, France, Ireland and Scotland. Denominated as 1/24 part of a Spanish Real, that translates out to 192 per Spanish Piece of Eight! That's about Four pounds of these! This is Variety Newman 2-B struck in 1688 at the Tower Mint. Probably never circulated as such ( as are a great many of these) is shows the effect of "tin pest".. 325 years worth! 
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Comments
Yours is an original and quite rare variety indeed. Perhaps harder than the famous error HB Rex to find. I am surprised they are not collected more as variety sets (only 10 varieties), except that two varieties, Newman4-D and 7-F are both R-8s. But still very cool and full of history. Holt's partnership had one of James II cousins (a Tin Barron) and were thus trying to foist these coins off on the Colonists in the distant because England would not have them.
Just felt like chiming in tonight
Best,
novacaesarea
where do you dig these things up?
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry