At our August meeting, ubiquitous auctioneer/educator Parry Bragg gave a presentation on the American Colonization Society featuring one of their coins. The organization sought to repatriate free blacks & former slaves to Liberia, a parallel effort to Great Britain’s establishment of Sierra Leone on the west coast of Africa. Both still exist as independent countries, although the population transfer was abandoned for a number of reasons (e.g., many acculturated English-speakers who’d been in North America for generations, were not excited to build homes in an unfamiliar climate, on unknown shores, with dubious neighbors).

The slabbed coin we examined resembled the one pictured (source linked here). Thanks to Parry for introducing an interesting new facet of numismatics!