Newfoundland Coin Varieties

History

Why Newfoundland had its own coins

Written by Matthew Stouffer

For eighty-four years, from 1865 until it joined Canada in 1949, Newfoundland had its own dollar and its own coins, including the only gold coin ever issued by a British North American colony.

Before 1865: credit, not cash

For most of the nineteenth century, life in Newfoundland's outports ran on merchant credit rather than money. In what became known as the truck system, a fishing family took food, clothing and gear from a local merchant on credit through the season, and settled up in the fall with their catch of salt cod. Prices for both the goods and the fish were set by the merchant at the end of the season, so many families never saw much cash at all, and some fell deeper into debt each year.

Newfoundland had no coins of its own, and small change was scarce. To make change, a few merchants had their own copper tokens made: the Rutherford brothers issued halfpennies in 1840–41, and after the great fire of 1846 a second Rutherford store in Harbour Grace issued tokens made by Heaton's mint in Birmingham, the same firm that would later strike some of Newfoundland's own coins. Peter M'Auslane, another St. John's merchant, issued a farthing, and two anonymous halfpennies followed in 1858 and 1860. The 1860 piece carries a political message: Fishery Rights for Newfoundland and Responsible Government and Free Trade.

Silver and gold came by sea. From about 1840, Spanish ships buying salt cod paid for their cargoes in Spanish and Mexican coin, which stayed in circulation until late in the century, alongside British, American and other foreign coins. Even so, as Newfoundland's Auditor-General later wrote, "as late as the 1870's very little coin was in circulation in the outports… sales were transacted by barter." An Act of 1844 first provided for a Newfoundland copper coinage, and £500 of it is said to have been imported in 1851, although no Treasury record of it survives.

The first banknotes came from two private banks: the Union Bank of Newfoundland, which issued £1 notes from 1854, and the Commercial Bank of Newfoundland, from 1857.

1865: a dollar of its own

An Act of 1854 had already fixed the pound sterling at $4.80 in local money. In 1863 a new Currency Act made dollars and cents the colony's money of account, and in 1865 the first Newfoundland coins arrived. The dollar, on the gold standard, was worth 4 shillings 2 pence sterling, so two cents equalled exactly one British penny, and Newfoundland's dollar was worth a little more than Canada's. Old habits lasted: the public was only required to keep its accounts in dollars and cents from 1877. The 1863 Act also allowed for half-cents, but none were ever ordered.

The Royal Mint in London struck the first coins: a bronze cent, silver 5, 10 and 20 cents, and a gold $2 piece. Before them came patterns: an 1864 pattern cent, with Leonard Wyon's portrait of Victoria and Horace Morehen's wreath of pitcher plants, is the earliest dated Newfoundland coin. Only a few were made, and none was meant for circulation. A gold dollar was considered first, but it would have been small enough for a fisherman to lose, so the gold coin became a two-dollar piece, marked three ways at once: Two Dollars, 200 Cents and One Hundred Pence. Newfoundland was the only colony in British North America with a gold coin of its own. Between 1865 and 1888 it issued $197,100 worth of them in eight coinages. A silver 50 cents followed in 1870.

Most coinages were struck in London, but in 1872, 1876, 1882 and 1904 the work was contracted to Ralph Heaton & Sons of Birmingham, and those coins carry a small H. The Royal Mint's own yearly reports record how many coins it struck and how many dies it used; see the Royal Mint records.

1894: Black Monday

On Monday, 10 December 1894, both of Newfoundland's commercial banks, the Union Bank and the Commercial Bank, closed their doors. Fish merchants sat on both banks' boards and had approved large, risky loans to themselves, and when London banks called in their credit, neither could pay. More than a million dollars in their banknotes became worthless, at least for a time, and the colony came close to bankruptcy.

Within two weeks Canadian banks arrived, among them the Bank of Montreal and the Bank of Nova Scotia. In 1895 Newfoundland's dollar was set equal to the Canadian dollar, a small devaluation of about 1.4%, and Canadian money circulated alongside Newfoundland's own from then on. Gold coins vanished into savings as people stopped trusting paper; the last $2 gold pieces had been struck in 1888.

With no private banks issuing notes, the government stepped in. From 1901 the Department of Public Works issued "cash notes" (40, 50 and 80 cents, $1 and $5), and from 1920 the Treasury issued $1 and $2 notes.

1907–1947: the Dominion of Newfoundland

On 26 September 1907 Newfoundland became a self-governing dominion, alongside Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Its coinage moved to the new Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint, and from 1917 the coins carry a C mint mark. That same year the 20 cents, easily mistaken for Canada's 25 cents, was replaced by a 25 cents struck to the Canadian standard. A smaller cent followed in 1938.

The Depression hit hard. Newfoundland left the gold standard in December 1931, and in 1934, unable to meet its debts, it gave up self-government for an appointed Commission of Government. During the Second World War the Ottawa mint kept striking Newfoundland coins, with a crowned portrait of King George VI by Percy Metcalfe, a style used for colonies, unlike the uncrowned portrait on Canada's own coins. The wartime coins include one of Barry's most remarkable finds, the 1945 Narrow Date 5 cents.

The last Newfoundland coins are dated 1947.

1949: Confederation

After two referendums in 1948, Newfoundland joined Canada as its tenth province on 31 March 1949, and the Newfoundland dollar was replaced by the Canadian dollar at par. Eighty-four years of coins remain, struck in London, Birmingham and Ottawa, and studied here variety by variety.

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