1783 Chalmers Shilling - Large Worm

Coin Details

Description

The 1783 Chalmers Shilling - Large Worm is filed under John Chalmers Coins in the Post-1776 Private and Regional Issues (1778-1820) series. John Chalmers, a goldsmith of Annapolis, Maryland, struck silver shillings, sixpences and threepences dated 1783. Crosby quotes the traveller Johann David Schöpf, who wrote that the goldsmith coined on his own account and took in cut pieces of Spanish dollars in exchange; Crosby found no proof that the government had consented. The common shillings show clasped hands in a wreath and, on the reverse, a serpent above a bar with two doves holding a branch below; the sixpence has a star in a wreath and a cross, and the threepence clasped hands and a branch in a wreath. Crosby found two dies of the common shilling reverse, differing in where the bar falls and in the ornament after ONE. PCGS lists it as #595.