1 Penny - Lord Baltimore "Denarium" Pattern

Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, commissioned this pattern in London around 1659 as part of an attempt to establish a proprietary coinage for Maryland — one of the very few serious efforts by an American colonial proprietor to mint his own money. The project never received Crown authorization, and the coins were almost certainly never shipped to the colony in any meaningful quantity. Whether they were intended to circulate or simply to demonstrate the concept remains debated.

Survivors are exceedingly rare. Most known examples passed through nineteenth-century collections before the type was properly documented.