Caribbean Coins
Caribbean coins come from islands that were governed by empires speaking four different languages — Spanish, English, French, and Dutch — and the coinage reflects every layer of that colonial inheritance. Some islands shared currencies across borders. Others minted their own the moment they gained sovereignty. A few still use coins struck thousands of miles away at European mints, carrying designs approved in London or Paris for circulation in the tropics.
The denominations in this collection carry names that trace back to the colonial economies that created them — cents, centavos, gourdes, guilders — alongside currencies that were invented at independence to mark the break from the past. The coins themselves were often minted abroad: at the Royal Mint in Wales, at the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, at private facilities contracted to produce the first money a new nation would call its own.
What connects them is the water. These are coins from economies built on shipping lanes, trade winds, and the movement of goods between continents.
