9 Black Dogs

The "Black Dog" was a colloquial term applied to worn, debased French colonial coins circulating throughout the British Caribbean — particularly the billon sous marqués — which had become so degraded in silver content that local commerce was perpetually disrupted. Nevis, like several neighboring Leeward Islands, responded by counterstamping available silver and issuing cut and plugged pieces with assigned local valuations entirely divorced from their metal content. The "9" denomination here denotes nine black dogs, a fractional accounting unit specific to this emergency coinage rather than any standard imperial reckoning.