25 Cents Pirates of Barbados - Blackbeard

Blackbeard — Edward Teach, or possibly Thatch — operated extensively in Caribbean waters between roughly 1716 and 1718, and Barbados falls squarely within his documented raiding range. He was killed in November 1718 off Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, by a Royal Navy lieutenant acting on orders from the Governor of Virginia, who had grown exasperated with colonial governors who tolerated piracy for commercial reasons. Barbados itself had a complicated relationship with buccaneers; its merchant class often quietly profited from pirate trade networks.

The coin is legal tender at face value, though its gold plating makes the economics of that proposition absurd.