Liberian silver

[villa66]

Liberia is an African country that descends from the settlement efforts begun in 1822 by the American Colonization Society, which had been organized in 1816. The idea behind the settlements was that they should become a destination for freed African-American slaves.

In 1847, Liberia became Africa’s first republic.

Over the years, the nation of Liberia has occupied a special place in American folklore. But as is almost always the case with national myth-making, the reality is sometimes...inconvenient. There’s plenty of idealism to be found in the Liberian experience, but there is also no shortage of cynicism.

There were two issues of Liberian copper coinage, in 1847 and 1862, but there were no Liberian silver coins until the issue of a full range of circulating coinage struck at the Heaton mint, dated 1896. That first Liberian silver coinage consisted of three denominations, the 10-cents, 25-cents, and 50-cents, all coined in sterling (.925) silver.

Ten years later, in 1906, an additional mintage of these coins was needed. Below is the 25-cent coin from that second issue, also struck in Birmingham, England.

Some 34,000 of these 1906 Liberian 25-cent pieces were minted, and as it happens, the image of this coin also appears on Liberia’s first “coin” postage stamp, the blue-and-black 25-cent of 1906.

The single star beneath the portrait suggests the single star on the Liberian flag, which—having replaced the original flag’s Christian cross—was intended to symbolize Liberia’s existence as a united and independent nation.

But note the portrait. It’s an image that I personally find very pleasing, but it seems much more European than African....

[villa66]

For decades, the coins of 1906 were the last Liberian silver. The years passed.

There were the big outside loans of 1912, and of 1926, a loan that was tied to the landmark 99-year lease to Firestone for a million acres to develop a rubber plantation.

There were the outside investigations, of 1909 into Liberian bankruptcy, and of 1930, into the country’s working conditions—it was an investigation which found evidence of actual slavery, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations.

Diplomatic relations were resumed in 1935, and the ’26 loan was renegotiated on terms more favorable to Liberia. Firestone’s rubber-making operations developed more quickly, and the country’s finances began to improve substantially. In 1943, Liberia adopted the U.S. dollar as a legal tender.

After WWII, Liberia’s economy continued its upward climb. One index: merchant shipping. In 1946, Liberian-registered merchant shipping amounted to about 1,000 tons; in 1959 (as a flag of convenience!), the total was 11,000,000.

In 1960, up-and-coming Liberia introduced its first new silver coins in more than a half century. The new silver series consisted of a 10-, 25-, and 50-cents, with a 1-dollar coin being added in 1961. Posted below are the reverses of the three higher values.

The new coins were struck in .900 silver at the U.S. mint in Philadelphia during the period 1959-1961. The 10-, 25-, and 50-cent coins were dated 1960 and 1961; the 1-dollar coins were dated 1961 and 1962. (All 1,200,000 of the 1-dollar coins were struck in 1961, but 1,000,000 of that total were dated 1962.)

The similarity of the new 1960-62 reverse to the old 1896-1906 reverse is pronounced, but the obverses are a different story....

[villa66]

The European portrait is gone, and in her place:

Notice the tape marks. Or perhaps more properly, the clean areas of the coin that were covered by tape for a long time, long enough for the uncovered areas to acquire a heavy tarnish.

The new African portrait is the work of Gilroy Roberts, who would soon—unfortunately—be hurrying to complete a new design...

[villa66]

Gilroy Robert’s obverse of America’s 1964 Kennedy half dollar, rushed into circulation after his assassination in November, 1963....

[villa66]

The connection here to President Kennedy is especially poignant, I think, because Liberia was one of the underdeveloped countries at whom the volunteer efforts of the Peace Corps were directed.

The Peace Corps had been one of the earliest of President Kennedy’s initiatives. Established by Executive Order in March, 1961, the Peace Corps—it is almost impossible, now, to recall the youthful idealism that surrounded that endeavor in the early to mid-60s—was at once a centerpiece and a touchstone of what we sometimes now hazily permit ourselves to remember as “Camelot.”

It was thinking about the tape marks on these three Liberian coins that started me thinking about the Peace Corps and those thousands of volunteers that shipped themselves off to the far corners of the world, many of them in Africa, determined to....help, however they could.

These three Liberian coins look as if they were taken from circulation, taped to thin cardboard, and mailed home to (because of where I found them) some American mother or father, or to some brother or sister.

For whatever reason, it seems clear that they remained as they were for many years. Time enough, anyway, for so much of what was so promising in their day to have long since disappeared.

v.