Liberia is a country in western Africa bordering Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. It was founded by the American Colonial Society with goal of settling African-Americans in Africa. It became a US-backed independent republic in 1847. Around 1900 it was together with Abyssinia the only African territory not under European colonial rule.
Liberia consists of various local ethnic groups, and the historically dominant Americo-Liberians. This caused frictions, culminating in the 1980 coup when president Tolbert and most of his cabinet members when executed, and later during the civil war in the 1990's, when Charles Taylor ruled with violence against minorities. The recent history has left Liberia impoverished. The recent outbreak of Ebola in the region also struck Liberia.
Liberia introduced its own Dollar at par with the American one in 1847. In 1907 these were replaced by the British West African Pound, despite not being part of the British Empire. In 1935 the US Dollar was reintroduced and from 1937 the second Liberian Dollar started circulating alongside US money. Until 1980, many Liberian coins had the same specifications as US coinage. After the 1980 coup, a lot of hard currency left the country and the Liberian Dollar lost value quickly. 5 Dollar coins minted in 1982 and 1985 made things only worse. After this no serious Liberian coinage has been produced. The country's coinage is notorious for its ludicrous commemoratives struck by private companies.
Today there are around 85 Liberian Dollars in a US Dollar.
"The country's coinage is notorious for its ludicrous commemoratives struck by private companies." So true. I have just one aluminum Liberian coin with a dragon on it. I don't much care for it, and I have a 1937 cent on the way in trade. I use the older coin in my collection. It looks so much better than their modern coins.
Verweis : nalaberongLiberian coins, with their American-inspired designs and African motifs, are truly beautiful.
I agree wholeheartedly. I love African coins which celebrate Africa, especially it's people and wildlife.
Seeing African issues with long dead Europeans on them or celebrating achievements made by first world nations must be very corrosive to the confidence of a young nation.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Probably true. These look like circulation coins, although the purchasing power of these coins was already pretty low at that time, like half and 1 US cent.
Probably true. These look like circulation coins, although the purchasing power of these coins was already pretty low at that time, like half and 1 US cent.
Highest valued Liberian banknote is at the time 100 Liberian dollars which is a little more than 1 usd
Probably true. These look like circulation coins, although the purchasing power of these coins was already pretty low at that time, like half and 1 US cent.
Highest valued Liberian banknote is at the time 100 Liberian dollars which is a little more than 1 usd
Could they have circulated along with previous $1 and $5 coins?
All possible. Nobody travels to Liberia anymore as it's been a pretty unstable place since 1980 so all we can do is speculate unless we can find a Liberian Numista member.
Anyhow, older Liberian coins have lovely designs, that I fully agree with.
They seem to mostly use US dollars in Liberia but here's an interesting quote from Wikitravel
"If someone gives you Liberian Dollars in change, accept it because it will be useful to have some on hand for very small purchases, but once you have a little, be sure to get dollars back (except when your change is less than a dollar, they use local currency in lieu of coins)."
I'm bumping this thread because I've just got a great old Liberian copper
This clinches it - Liberia has experienced the single worst decline in any country's coinage ever. They went from these wonderful classics to this...
Verweis : "frncsbrennan""The country's coinage is notorious for its ludicrous commemoratives struck by private companies." So true. I have just one aluminum Liberian coin with a dragon on it. I don't much care for it, and I have a 1937 cent on the way in trade. I use the older coin in my collection. It looks so much better than their modern coins.
how come that these coins made by private companies are not seen as tokens??
Verweis : "frncsbrennan""The country's coinage is notorious for its ludicrous commemoratives struck by private companies." So true. I have just one aluminum Liberian coin with a dragon on it. I don't much care for it, and I have a 1937 cent on the way in trade. I use the older coin in my collection. It looks so much better than their modern coins.
how come that these coins made by private companies are not seen as tokens??
Because the coin catalogues keep including them which creates demands among collectors. Collect them if it makes you happy, or just ignore them. As long as the information provided with coins is accurate, anyone can make his own mind.
This is somewhat older news, but the Central Bank of Liberia intends to release new circulation coins in the next year. This is in combination with a new series of banknotes to be released this year. They have already released a 100 Dollar banknote last December. Here's the link to the article and to photos of the 100 Dollar banknote.
Master Coin Referee
Coin referee for CRI, GTM, HND, NIC, PAN, and SLV.
Revisor principal de monedas
Revisor de Numista para monedas de CRI, GTM, HND, NIC, PAN y SLV.
Liberia is not the only one with crazy NCLT junque coins. Have you seen some of the rubbish and dreck coming out of Tristan da Cunha, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and Niue. It is just complete garbage and mostly aimed at the American Buddy Richson type market.
We keep getting junk mail in our papers from Bradford exchange advertising “Gold Crowns” of TDC that are actually gold plated Steel with a face value of 25 pence, yet these people charge $90 + $10 postage and handling for them!
Liberia tried to be democratic with Sirleaf Johnson, but there is too much bad blood between the Amero Liberians and the Native ones. The first are mostly English speaking Protestants and the others are Muslim, African speakers.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Liberia is not the only one with crazy NCLT junque coins. Have you seen some of the rubbish and dreck coming out of Tristan da Cunha, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and Niue. It is just complete garbage and mostly aimed at the American Buddy Richson type market.
We keep getting junk mail in our papers from Bradford exchange advertising “Gold Crowns” of TDC that are actually gold plated Steel with a face value of 25 pence, yet these people charge $90 + $10 postage and handling for them!
According to Numista since 2012 there has been only 2 NCLTs released so I think the most of them are coming out of the counties you have mentioned plus the U.K. territories and a few southern Asian countries such as Singapore.
I think people would be interested in them if they were priced correctly such as a few dollars above melt not triple or quadruple melt, heck I’ve seen some going for nearly 10 times melt! Finally most of them are not minted in the country or even in Niues case New Zealand (because they use the NZ dollar) but minted in mints in the US or Europe such as Poland or Lithuania. Sadly this ”scheme” is not going to stop even some official mints are getting involved in these cash grabs.
Hi to whoever is reading this. Did you know that TYPEWRITER (on a QWERTY keyboard) is the longest word you can type using only the letters on one row of the keyboard.
Camerinvs - Thank you! for posting the existence of those GREAT research articles on Liberia, by Bill Dalzell. Paywall is brutal for a quick download though. I've accumulated all eight varieties and have them posted at: https://moneta-coins.com/showgallery.php?cat=551
I worked with Randy Snyder and he guided me to the Sun Disk variety hauled over from the U.K. I crave those articles and appreciate you posting that information.
Are you saying you weren't able to find the PDF anywhere? I have the print version but will try to find a digital copy later. If I can't, the paper should be available in about a year in JStor (2-year firewall).
Thanks for this. I do have both of your AJN papers — the second one in print because I'm your “neighbor” in that issue of AJN. If I'm not mistaken it will be accessible through JSTOR in 2027.
Have you completed your Liberia projects or is there more to come?
Thanks for this. I do have both of your AJN papers — the second one in print because I'm your “neighbor” in that issue of AJN. If I'm not mistaken it will be accessible through JSTOR in 2027.
Have you completed your Liberia projects or is there more to come?
I will eventually like to write a monograph on Liberia. The only remaining areas to study are the mass produced patterns (probably by Lauer in Nürnberg), the Heaton issues, and the US mint strikes, but none of those are terribly interesting to me. As much as I hate them, there is some really interesting research to be done on the late 20th century NCLT coins and how they may have funded the state.
I'm mostly focused on a die study of Haitian coinage of at the moment, primarily of Petion, Boyer, and the Port-au-Prince issues of Soulouque. All of that is to forward my research on the Belleville mint, which will some day become a book.
I just had a look at the Liberian NCLT production and it's worse than I thought. I agree the most interesting aspect is how NCLTs may have helped to fund the state. Hopefully the stats are in the public domain or at least accessible on demand.
Now, as for circulating coins, we have a strange yo-yo situation where we have a $5 coin issued in 1982–1985 in reasonably large numbers (so it seems to have circulated for real); then we have an issue of 5 cents / 25 cents / 50 cents (and no 1$ or 5$ coins) in 2000 which is claimed to have been circulating though we don't have mintage figures (here on Numista at least) to verify that; and then, back with larger, $5— and $10— issues since 2022 (and no 5c – $1 issue). I'm not sure how to make sense of that, even though I see online that the Liberian $ lost half of its value from after 2016/17.
