8 Dollars / 36 Shillings Colony of Maryland

Maryland's colonial legislature authorized this emission in July 1775, by which point the political situation had made British monetary authority largely irrelevant in practice. The dual denomination — eight dollars and thirty-six shillings simultaneously — reflects the awkward coexistence of Spanish milled dollar accounting and traditional sterling reckoning that defined colonial finance right up to independence. Neither system had clean precedent for what came next.

Frederick Green was the Maryland Gazette's printer, not a specialist currency engraver. That the legislature turned to a newspaper printer for both press work and plate cutting tells you something about Annapolis's limited options in 1775.