Rosa Americana Coins

About This Coin

Authorized by a royal patent granted to William Wood in 1722, the Rosa Americana coins represent one of the most ambitious attempts to supply the British American colonies with a standardized coinage. Struck in Bath metal, a brass-like alloy of copper, zinc, and tin with a distinctive golden color, these coins were produced in denominations of halfpenny, penny, and twopence at 26.4 mm diameter for the largest pieces. The obverse bears the portrait of King George I with GEORGIUS D:G: MAG: BRI: FRA: ET HIB: REX, while the reverse features the "American Rose" — a Tudor rose — with the legend ROSA AMERICANA UTILE DULCI ("American Rose, the Useful with the Pleasant"), a quotation from Horace. A remarkable auction result of $132,000 in PR64BN grade at Stack's Bowers demonstrates the extraordinary value that premium examples command. Despite the official royal backing, the Rosa Americana coins met resistance in the colonies, where merchants and citizens distrusted the unfamiliar Bath metal composition and questioned the coins' intrinsic value compared to copper or silver. The colonial opposition mirrored the reception of Wood's other patent coinage for Ireland, which Jonathan Swift famously denounced in the Drapier's Letters. Though commercially unsuccessful, Rosa Americana coins survive as beautifully designed artifacts of colonial monetary policy, and their relative scarcity combined with historical significance makes them highly sought by collectors of pre-Revolutionary American numismatic material.