Catalog
| Issuer | Sierra Leone Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1791 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dollar (1791-1830) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | SIERRA LEONE COMPANY AFRICA |
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| Additional information |
The Sierra Leone Company was a British abolitionist venture chartered in 1792 to govern the Province of Freedom settlement at Freetown, but this dollar was struck in 1791 — the year before the charter — when the enterprise was still operating under its predecessor, the St. George's Bay Company. The coins were intended to provide a stable local currency for a colony populated largely by Black Loyalists evacuated from Nova Scotia and liberated Africans, a population for whom British coinage was both scarce and practically useless in daily trade.
The KM#6 designation covers what is effectively a pattern-adjacent issue; surviving examples are rare in any condition, and the .902 fineness closely mirrors contemporary Spanish milled dollar standards — almost certainly deliberate, to encourage acceptance alongside the pieces of eight already circulating on the West African coast.