Sierra Leone - 1791 Penny - Museum Gallery

December 2025

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A gorgeous toned proof bronzed example of the scarce Penny. The Sierra Leone comes from 'Lion Mountain'. This is the first of what I consider an 'abolitionist state', with Liberia (USA) following on the British model. The abolitionist movement had strong beginnings in the UK which resulted in the creation of S.L. There will be an interesting history of these two W.African countries in the Library. The second settlement of blacks into S.L. were those Royalists that had left America for Newfoundland. Life was very hard in Newfoundland and many agreed to help start the colony in S.L. The diameter of this one is 31 mm., in between the 32mm and 30mm listing in KM.
These were struck by Matthew Boulton at his steam powered mint in Soho, Birmingham, U.K. The 1791 date refers to the date of the Company's founding. The actual date of striking began in Dec of 1792, following the end of his Monneron Brothers (see France) issues. A side note is that the 1 Dollar (later 100 Cents) coins were the first coins struck using a decimal series of denominations in magnitudes of '10'. This early issue uses the denomination of 'Penny' which later issues phrased as 'Cent". Please note the variety here has the smooth finish applied to the hand on the right side. while my other copper (uncataloged) example employs 'stippling' to indicate skin tone. The bronzing technique was applied by brushing a copper blank with bronzing powder and then fixing it by baking. The resultant finish protected the coin from future tarnishing or spotting.
To read an article from "COIN WORLD" by Jeff Stark, please see this [ link ]