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Pictured above, is a Sommer Islands Sixpence with Large Portholes. This specimen, graded, AU 50 by NGC, is among the top 5 slabbed Sommer Island pieces. These coins were produced in four denominations: 2 pence, 3 pence (the rarest denomination); 6 pence with small or large portholes on the reverse; and shillings with large or small sails. The denomination was specified in roman numerals displayed on the obverse above the hog. This coinage, also known as "Hogge Money", has the distinction of being the first produced for circulation in the English-speaking colonies of the New World. The Sommer Islands, known as Bermuda today, were originally discovered by Juan de Bermudez, a Spanish navigator, who found them by accident circa 1505. Some years later, he returned to the islands, and left hogs there as a food source for future settlers. No such Spanish settlements materialized, and over the next 100 years the hog population flourished in the wild. It is the hog that serves as the central motif on the obverse of all Sommer Island pieces.
One might ask, why Bermuda Hogge Money would be collected as part of the American colonial series, since Bermuda is not one of the United States? The reason is that the history of Bermuda is intimately interwoven with that of the Jamestown colony of Virginia. In 1609, an armada of 9 provisioning ships set sail to bolster this Virginia colony that was suffering severe hardships. Two of the ships were separated from the main fleet during a violent hurricane, and crashed onto the shores of Bermuda. One of the two wrecked ships was called the Sea Adventurer, and is believed to have served as a model for the vessel depicted on the reverse of the Hogge Money. Aboard this ship was Sir George Sommers, an admiral, popular naval war hero, and privateer, after which the islands were formerly named. (The copious hog population served as a welcome food source for the stranded crew and settlers.) George Sommers oversaw the construction of two ships, and the journey to Jamestown was completed. Sommers eventually returned to Bermuda, for which he had developed an emotional attachment. He died shortly thereafter, and parts of his body were interred there at his request.
The Hogge Money was coined circa 1616, to placate rebellious colonists who were expected to volunteer their services to build infrastructure (such as roads and forts), and received delayed remuneration for their farming efforts. The corporation that ran the colony envisioned the following scenario: Settlers would grow and harvest a commodity useful to the home country, such as tobacco. The colonists would receive nothing immediately for their efforts. Once the crops were shipped to England and sold, they would be compensated for their efforts in the form of credits to be used for supplies and other necessities at the corporate store. (The whole idea behind colonial mercantilism was to keep specie (gold and silver) in the home country, and compensate colonists with manufactured goods produced in that home country.
Settlers clamored for more immediate and tangible rewards. The resulting Sommer Island coinage was created, and intended to circulate only within the Sommer Islands (Bermuda). To ensure that the coins did not migrate off the islands, they were minted from flimsy brassy copper planchets, sometimes washed in tin to give them a silvery appearance. From day one, the coins were not popular with the colonists, who viewed them as worthless, and within seven years, could no longer be found in circulation. A barter and trade economy resumed thereafter. The Sommer Islands coinage, although authorized by a royal patent of King James I, was never considered "coin of the realm", and hence was not recognized as legal tender beyond the islands.
The first comprehensive book on American colonial coinage, The Early Coins Of America, authored by Sylvester S. Crosby in 1875, cited a total of only 3 known Hogge Money specimens - two shillings and a six pence. Although this coinage is very scarce, several additional pieces have been discovered in the interim, largely as a result of archaeological digs and searchings with metal detectors. Virtually all have some form of corrosion, owing to their long exposure to Bermuda's high humidity, and many having been buried in salty sand or soil.
Since 1970, Bermuda has adopted the hog as a central motif on its circulating cent.