Definition of Historical Term

moderncrapmostly · October 29, 2007 11:37PM

Being a coin guy, a history nut and a genealgoist; I've run across a term I cannot find info on. In a court case in Kentucky in 1793 there is a reference to payment as follows:

"Received of Thos Allen the within five Joes" This is in origional handwriting. It is repreated in another document in the same court case a few years later.

What the heck was a Joe?

CheeseGuy · October 29, 2007 11:42PM

maybe cuppa joe?

Longacre · October 30, 2007 12:11AM

Didn't board member Pistareen write an article about these? Maybe you can PM him.

PerryHall · October 30, 2007 12:28AM

I believe it's a large silver Portugese coin that circulated in colonial America.

Pistareen · October 30, 2007 1:04AM

The last responder is close -- it is indeed a Portuguese type, struck at mints on the mainland and in Brazil.

But Joes were gold. "Joe" is a non-precise term that can refer to the 6400 reis denomination (worth $8) or the 12,800 reis denomination that was worth $16. The 6400 reis was the single most recognized and commonly circulated gold coin in early America, even moreso than Spanish "doubloons." The 6400 was often called a "half Joe," since it was half of the 12,800 reis, but it was also just called a "Joe." Thus, an imprecise term.

The term comes from the fact that the Portuguese monarch was depicted on it -- Josephus on the early type, Johannes on the later types. The Latin was more popularly rendered as "Joe" for both of them.

Five Joes, assuming that these were the 6400 Reis type (a fairly safe assumption in 1793, given the way the etymology evolved), would have been worth $40. $40 in gold was a considerable sum of money, particularly so on the Kentucky frontier.

I wrote an article on these in The Numismatist back in 2004 or 2003.