Stamp Story No. 134 Hogs Gave Currency Its Name

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30212, 17 August 1963, Page 10

Stamp Story No. 134 Hogs Gave Currency Its Name

[Specially written for "The Press’ 1 by

KENNETH ANTHONY

surprising number of cases are known in which spelling mistakes have occurred on postage stamps. Yet the stamp illustrated here, contrary to appearances, is not one of them! “Hogge mony” says the inscription on the Bermuda is stamp first in 1953—and Sure enough the meaning is hog money. This was the earliest colonial coinage, and the first coinage to be struck in North America. It derived its name from the hog portrayed on one Side. But the term “hogge mony” appears In a letter dated 1615 in the Bermuda archives, and the old spelling was retained in the stamp design. The hog motif owed its origin to the fact that Juan de Bermudez, the Spaniard who discovered the islands in 1515, was shipwrecked there with a cargo of hogs when bound for Cuba. When another shipwreck, in 1609, was followed three

years later by the first permanent British settlement, the new settlers found that wild hogs were still plentiful! Hog money has today become a great numismatic rarity, fewer than a dozen coins being known. They were of silvered copper, in 2d, 3d, 6d, and Is pieces. In contrast the stamp which depicts them is still common enough. From the stamp it can be seen that on the old coins appeared the name of the Somers Islands. This was the original name for Bermuda, conferred in memory of Sir George Somers, who led the expedition of 1609. Perhaps the honour was scarcely deserved, however, for Sir George was really bound for Virginia at the time, and finished up in Bermuda only because his ship was wrecked there. It was only later that Juan de Burmudez was remembered, and the islands appropriately renamed afte. him.— (Central Press Features, Ltd AU Rights Reserved).