Hawaiian Coinage (1847-2018)

The Kingdom of Hawaii issued money of its own only twice. In 1846 the government, through its agent James Jackson Jarves, ordered 100,000 copper cents from the United States, and Edward Hulseman designed and engraved them. The coins are dated 1847 and show Kamehameha III in uniform with KAMEHAMEHA III. KA MOI, with HAPA HANERI in a wreath on the reverse. No record names the maker; Walter Breen put the work at the private mint of H. M. & E. I. Richards in Attleboro, Massachusetts. The cents never caught on. Medcalf and Russell found 11,595 still in the treasury in 1862, and 88,305 were sold as scrap metal in 1885, the year after they lost legal tender status. The 1847 cent has its own page here, with die varieties beside it.

King Kalakaua looked at a coinage again after his world tour of 1881. The owner of a nickel mine in New Caledonia proposed a nickel five-cent piece, dies were cut in Paris and about 200 patterns were struck there, but the reverse transposed the first two letters of the motto and the coinage went no further (1881 nickel pattern).

The silver coinage came in 1883. Under the currency act of 1880 and a contract arranged by the merchant Claus Spreckels, the United States Mint agreed to coin one million dollars in silver to American weight and fineness. Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber designed all four coins. The Director of the Mint's report for 1884 records that the San Francisco Mint began work on November 17, 1883 and finished in June 1884, and that the request for an eighth-dollar piece was changed to a ten-cent piece. Every coin is dated 1883, though the dime dies did not reach San Francisco until February 1884. After Hawaii became an American territory, Congress set January 1, 1904 as the last day to exchange the coins, and those turned in were melted at San Francisco.

The 1883 silver. All four coins carry Kalakaua's head facing right with KALAKAUA I KING OF HAWAII and the date 1883. The dime has UMI KENETA in a crowned wreath with ONE DIME below; the quarter (HAPAHA) and half dollar (HAPALUA) carry the royal arms; the dollar (AKAHI DALA) shows the arms on a mantle under a crown with the star of the Order of Kamehameha below. The motto UA MAU KE EA O KA AINA I KA PONO runs around the reverse. There is no mint mark on any of them, even though they were struck at San Francisco.

Proofs and patterns. Proofs were made apart from the circulating coinage for presentation, and the proof dollar and its companions have their own pages. The copper pieces of the same dies are proof patterns struck at Philadelphia, numbered 2CPC-1 to 2CPC-4 by Medcalf and Russell; PCGS lists one of them, the copper eighth dollar, as a fantasy strike in bronze, although Stack's Bowers catalogues the same number as 2CPC-1.

Later pieces. Around 1900 someone struck pieces from Barber's 1883 hubs in other metals and as one-sided impressions; PCGS dates them about 1900 and records some under 1884. The copies of the 1881 nickel pattern made about the same time lack the cross on top of the crown that the Paris originals carry (copy). The medals of the 1890s with Princess Kaiulani or Queen Liliuokalani, such as Huth's 2MH-3, are private pieces struck in London.

Tokens. Merchants, plantations and a railroad on Maui issued their own tokens, spent at the issuer's store and not legal tender: the J. T. Waterhouse token of Honolulu, the Wailuku Plantation pieces of 1871 and 1880 (12 1/2 cents, narrow starfish), Thomas Hobron's railroad tokens of 1879 marked T.H.H. (25 cents), the Haiku token of 1882, the Grove Ranch pieces of 1886 and 1887 and the Kahului Railroad tokens of 1891 (10 cents).

1847 cents. Medcalf and Russell divide the cents by the 4 in the date and the berries in the wreath. The crosslet 4, which they call the large bust, comes with 18 berries (2CC-1) or 15 berries (2CC-2, this page); the plain 4, the small bust, with 17, 15 or 13 berries (2CC-3 to 2CC-6).

1883 silver. The Mint's report gives 250,000 dimes, 500,000 quarters, 700,000 half dollars and 500,000 dollars. Medcalf and Russell, as reported by Wikipedia, put the melted totals at 79 dimes, 257,400 quarters, 612,245 halves and 453,652 dollars. One quarter die shows the 8 of the date cut over a 3, the 1883/1383 quarter (2CS-3a).

1883 patterns. The eighth dollar, HAPAWALU, was struck only as a proof, in silver (2CS-2) and in copper. PCGS reports eighteen sets of copper proofs of the eighth, quarter, half and dollar (copper dollar).

After 1884. No Hawaiian coinage is known after the 1883 and 1884 strikings, and the obverse dies were defaced in 1888. The pieces dated later in this series are medals, tokens and modern private issues sold with Hawaiian themes, and none of them is a coin of Hawaii.

The 1847 cent is copper, about 27 mm across. The 1883 coins were struck to the weight and fineness of the American coins of the same values, so they are .900 silver: the dime 2.5 grams, the quarter 6.25 grams, the half dollar 12.5 grams and the dollar 26.73 grams. The 1881 five-cent patterns are nickel. The 1883 patterns exist in silver and copper, and the pieces made about 1900 from the hubs are known in copper, gold, platinum and other metals.