Jamaican Silver Coins

Jamaica is a Caribbean island nation south of Cuba and west of Haiti. Discovered in 1494 by Christopher Columbus, Jamaica was a Spanish colony until conquered by the British in 1655. Due to lack of support from the homeland, the British governor gave pirates and privateers safe haven in the capital of Port Royal in return for defending the colony against the Spanish. The famous ex-pirate Captain Henry Morgan drove the pirates out of Jamaica as a British official. Jamaica won independence in 1962, but remains a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Counter-stamped Spanish silver reals, where the term "piece of eight" comes from, were tender in Jamaica until 1825. Since the freed slaves considered giving copper coins as church tithes to be bad luck, Jamaica was the first British Caribbean possession to get its own coinage in 1880 (of cupro-nickel.) Jamaican coinage was decimalized in 1969 as the Jamaican dollar. All Jamiacan silver coins have been commemorative issues.