Hammer Time

This coin has been around the world, from Utrecht to New Amsterdam. And it was in fact hammered into being, by an official minter in Utrecht, nearly 300 years ago. He took a hot swoop of molten silver and in a die cast image, created a piece of monetary art work that has circulated at least one ocean on a wooden ship.

The United Netherlands was a collection of 7 united provinces set to mercantilism across the globe. Coins, left by these Dutch traders, have been found not only in known Dutch settlements like New York (formerly New Amsterdam) and Curacao, but also on the Australian coast. Proof that before Captain Cook, Dutch merchants were in the area. The Dutch had also set up colonies in Malaysia, India & South America.

This particular piece circulated in the American Colonies, shortly after to become the United States, where there was a shortage of coins. In fact, through out the entire British Empire, there was a shortage of coins in the 18th Century. Dutch guilders circulated alongside Spanish Colonial reales, and traded through out the colony at a silver-based value. Guilders were the equivalent of 2 shillings, or 1/10 of a pound sterling.

The Spanish reales became the first United States dollar. Not only did these coins popularly circulate from Georgia to Massachusetts, but Alexander Hamilton (the first treasurer of the United States) took the average weight of circulated 8 reales pieces to determine the amount of silver for the first American dollar. 2 reales took the form of quarter-dollars, 4 reales became half-dollars, etc --and Spanish reales circulated as legal currency in the United States until 1857!

The holders of this pictured guilder may never be known. Or the name of the ship this coin came on to the New World. What purchases were made, and from where they came from in the burgeoning world are secrets that this coin knows. But it's lips are sealed.

Correspondent Muammar Hassan Reports