Portrait of the Rt. Excellent Sir Alexander Bustamante Neck Chain

925 silver on authentic JMD Coinage

Jamaican coin history:

The creation of the Jamaican dollar followed Jamaican independence by about seven years, with the new currency being introduced in 1969. In the interim, the British West Indies dollar and the Eastern Caribbean dollar were the island’s primary currency; although, remarkably, Spanish pieces of eight were also still in circulation, despite the fact that Spain’s ownership of the island was more than 300 years in the past.

The first currency used in Jamaica was Spanish, as Jamaica was under Spanish control in 1494 with the arrival of Columbus. The primary currency in use under the Spanish consisted of small copper coins known as maravedis and the widely used Spanish pieces of eight silver coins, so called because they equaled eight Spanish reales.

The British Empire took over the island in 1655 and gave it the name Jamaica. British coinage became the island’s official currency, although Spanish coins continued in circulation until the Crown demonetized all of them except for gold doubloons in 1840. During that time, Jamaican currency consisted of farthings, halfpennies, pennies, three halfpence, threepence, sixpence, shillings, florins, half crowns, and crowns.

When the Bank of Jamaica created the Jamaican dollar, it decimalized the currency so that it could be subdivided into cents. The new dollar was distinguished from all other dollars in the former British West Indies by the fact that all the surrounding currencies mimicked either the US dollar or the Spanish real, while the Jamaican dollar was, in essence, a half-pound British sterling.