1833 1C CH-1, BN N1BN Certification #47825297, PCGS #724203

These coins were minted by John Gibbs Company, Belleville, New Jersey, who also produced many of the American Hard Times tokens of that period. Liberia was the first African colony to become an independent republic. In 1833, the colony’s founding organization, the American Colonization Society, issued a copper coin bearing the names of the colony and the Society. It has previously been suggested to have been a token issue, wholly American in nature, and created for distribution as an advertising piece to promote the American Colonization Society within the United States. A thorough examination of the coinage itself and related contemporary sources within the context of the political and social setting of pre-independence Liberia will reframe the issue correctly as an integral part of a coinage proposal for the colony, struck at the hitherto understudied mint of Stephens, Thomas & Fuller in Belleville, New Jersey.