NEW BOOK: CATALOGUE DES MONNAIES AMÉRICAINES

CATALOG OF AMERICAN COINS
VOLUME 1: NORTH AMERICA, COLONIAL COINS, COINS FROM THE WEST INDIES
Jerome Jambu

One of the most remarkable numismatic collections in the world is kept in the medallions of the Coins, Medals and Antiques Department of the National Library of France. Of the 450,000 or so coins it counts, nearly 45,000 have been produced in monetary workshops in Europe and the Americas, from the Middle Ages to the present day. This first volume of the Historical Catalog of American Coins of the National Library of France, devoted to North America. Colonial coins, coins from the West Indies reveal to the reader an original and little-known collection.

Established since the end of the 18th century through informed collectors and through acquisitions by curators, it sheds light on essential moments in the history of these regions, from the coins produced by the Compagnie des Indes occidentales for the French Antilles to the first local coins of the English settlers of the thirteen continental colonies. Spanish silver coins cut to make small change, Portuguese gold coins hallmarked to circulate from island to island, coins symbolic of the accession to independence of Haiti or the Dominican Republic produced by the Mint of Paris, adaptations to economic needs and historical changes have given the currencies of these countries multiple and original forms.

A second volume, in preparation, still devoted to North America, will cover the Revolutionary and federal coinages of the United States and Canada.

Description
Softcover, 166 pages, 44 plates, 21 x 29.7 cm

Release date
July 8, 2021

ISBN / EAN
978-2-7177-2878-1 / 9782717728781

For more information, or to order, see:
CATALOGUE DES MONNAIES AMÉRICAINES (http://editions.bnf.fr/catalogue-des-monnaies-am%C3%A9ricaines)

While there is nothing that could ever replace the museum experience or to physically attend an archive for research purposes, a museum collection catalogue offers access to a collection that may otherwise be too remote for interested parties to visit. This is exactly what Jérôme Jambu has offered in a recent volume of BnF Éditions.

In this Édition, Catalogue historique des monnaies américaines de la bibliothèque nationale de France (Historical Catalog of American Coins in the National Library of France), Jambu provides a glimpse into the BnF collection of North American colonial coins and the coinage of the Antilles.

There are several coins in the BnF collection that will be familiar to the traditional readership of the Journal of Early American Numismatics, who largely collect and research the coinage and paper currency of British North America—in particular, the thirteen colonies that later became the United States. For instance, the BnF has five different silver coins from Massachusetts Bay in its collection, as well as a Virginia half penny, and Lord Baltimore shilling that probably deserves a second look (due to a floral design on the reverse that may have been on the planchet prior to striking). Also present throughout the collection are several United States coins that were used as undertypes for various coins, such as an 1838 half dollar that circulated in Puerto Rico beginning in April 1885; an 1802 large cent that circulated in the Swedish and Danish West Indies between 1808 and 1812; an 1806 quarter dollar that likely circulated in Guadeloupe after 1848; and several others that fall into this category. The majority of British American colonial coins entered the BnF through an 1861–donation by Alexandre Vattemare—famed ventriloquist-turned-philanthropist, central to the founding of many key cultural institutions that still exist today—who collected the coins during his travels to the United States between 1847 and 1849.

That said, most of the coins in this portion of the BnF collection are, understandably, from French North America—largely the Caribbean, or the West Indies as the 7,000+ island-region was popularly known when the coins circulated.

Although the French holdings in the Americas were severely reduced after 1763, the area served as a major trading hub for the colonies and, especially, the newly-founded United States—when major trade routes were completely destroyed in the course of the Revolution. One of the few exceptions was trade between the East Coast and the West Indies. This was true particularly of the French West Indies, after France had helped the United States gain its freedom. Even prior to the Revolution, it was through the West Indies that Spanish-American, Portuguese-American, and French coinage entered what is now the United States.

That's where this book comes into play. It can serve as a foundational study for those who are otherwise unaware of this numismatic facet. It is in these pages of the catalogue that Jambu presents the reader with the various types of rare Spanish-American cut coinages that circulated throughout the West Indies on official sanction. Often, the coins were actually fractions of a coin that few would consider money today. Jambu expertly delineates when, where, and by whom most of the coins in the BnF originated and provides succinct historical sketches of each. An incredible contribution to the BnF collection of French-American colonial coinage came from the 1907-donation of Ernest Zay, who gave 235 of the 543 coins (42.3%) listed by Jambu. The individual listings of every single coin in the catalogue is then coupled with 44 black-and-white plates of all 543 coins listed.

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