1783 MD Threepence Chalmers

Coin Details

Description

The smallest denomination in the Chalmers coinage series, this 1783 silver threepence was issued by John Chalmers, a goldsmith and silversmith operating in Annapolis, Maryland, who produced a short-lived series of silver coins to address the chronic shortage of small-denomination silver currency in the region. 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. PCGS lists it as #592.