100 Dollars - Elizabeth II Hogge Money

Hogge Money — properly the Sommer Islands coinage of circa 1616 — holds the distinction of being the earliest coinage struck specifically for use in a British colonial territory. The pieces take their name from the wild hogs that greeted the first English settlers after the 1609 shipwreck of the Sea Venture, the same disaster that likely inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest. This 1989 BMA issue commemorates that original copper and brass series, which itself was privately produced, possibly in England, for the Somers Isles Company.

The original Hogge Money circulated only briefly before being displaced by foreign coin and commodity exchange.