Bermuda

The beautiful islands of Bermuda were discovered in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez and remained uninhabited until a party of Virginia-bound British colonists, led by Sir George Somers, was shipwrecked there in 1609. The islands were settled in 1612 and became a British colony some years later; to date Bermuda remains the oldest British colony.

The first British Colonial coinage is considered to be the Bermuda Hogge Money or Somer Islands' coins struck in 1616. Each coin featured a hog upon its obverse, alluding to the colonists' fervent thanks for a welcome source of food, and a ship upon the reverse. It was not until 1793 that coinage bearing the name "Bermuda" was struck, commonly referred to as the "Ship's Penny" because of the three masted sailing ship depicted on the reverse. With effect from 1 January 1842, the currency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the currency of Bermuda and this was the case until 6 February 1970 when Bermuda issued a definitive coinage of its own based on the more convenient decimal system of dollars and cents.

The reverse designs of Bermuda's circulation coins reflect, in part, the Island's history and its wealth of flora and fauna. The One Dollar features the Bermuda dinghy in full sail, appropriate for an island nation with a long seafaring history; the Twenty-Five Cents features Bermuda's national bird, the longtail; the Ten Cents depicts Easter lilies, which were introduced to the island in 1853; the Five Cents depicts the angel Fish, representative of Bermuda's exotic marine creatures; and the One Cent features the wild Bermuda Hog, alluding to the Island's first coins.

The obverse of its coin features Raphael Maklouf's portrait of Her Majesty the Queen. The coins are produced by the British Royal Mint.

For further information, contact the Bermuda Monetary Authority at Burnaby House, 26 Burnaby Street, Hamilton HM 11, Bermuda. Telephone: (441) 295-5278, Facsimile: (441) 292-7471, Internet: http://www.bma.bm