Catalog
1/2 Piastre - Zichron Jacob
| Issuer | Zichron Jacob Colony |
|---|---|
| Year | 1885 |
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| Shape | Round |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain field displaying the Hebrew settlement name in two lines of bold raised Hebrew script: זִכְרוֹן (upper line) and יַעֲקֹב (lower line), reading 'Zikhron Ya'akov' (Memorial of Jacob). A small horizontal ornamental rule or dash divides the lower field below the inscription. The field is otherwise unadorned, emphasizing the legibility of the Hebrew lettering. The design mirrors the obverse in its typographic simplicity, providing the bilingual identification of the issuing colony. |
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| Mintage | 1885: ND (1885) |
| Additional information |
Zichron Jacob — founded in 1882 by Romanian Jewish immigrants and later supported by Baron Edmond de Rothschild — issued these brass tokens as a practical solution to chronic small-change shortages in Ottoman Palestine. The colony operated under Rothschild's administration as a near-autonomous agricultural settlement, and the token coinage functioned as internal scrip, redeemable within the colony's own commercial infrastructure. Ottoman authorities tolerated such arrangements in remote settlements where imperial coinage rarely circulated in sufficient quantity.
Fewer than a handful of institutions worldwide hold documented examples.