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Black dog (coin)

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A dog or a black dog was a coin in the Caribbean of Queen Anne of Great Britain, made of pewter or copper, typically worth 1½ pence or 172 of a dollar. The name comes from the negative connotations of the word "dog," as they came from debased silver coins, and the dark color of those same debased coins. Black dogs were also at times called "stampes" or "stampees," as they were typically the coins of other colonial powers—French coins worth 2 sous or, equivalently, 24 diniers—stamped to make them British currency.

A dog and a stampe were not necessarily of equal value. For example, the Spanish dollar was subdivided into bits, each worth 9 pence, 6 black dogs or 4 stampees. Before 1811, 1 dollar equalled 11 bits (making a dog 166 of a dollar and a stampee 144 of a dollar); after 1811, 1 dollar equalled 12 bits (making a dog 172 of a dollar and a stampee 148 of a dollar). In 1797, however, a "black dog" is equated with a "stampee."

Mary Prince's narrative tells of slaves in Antigua buying a "dog's worth" of salted fish or pork on Sundays (the only day they could go to the market).

References

Black dog (coin) Wikipedia