Among all the coin issues attributed to Hawaii that were put into circulation before the Kingdom became a territory of the United States, the only ones with reasonable claim to relevance are those authorized by the Kingdom itself, which coincidentally happen also to be the only ones coined by known makers in the continental United States: The 1847 keneta (‘cent(s)’) and the 1883 silver issues.

Within a few decades after the senseless scuffle that resulted in the death of Captain James Cook in 1779, King Kamehameha I (also known as “Kamehameha the Great”) conquered his rivals and forcibly unified the archipelago, ending countless generations of interisland warfare. Among his various innovations was the recognition of gold and silver as the primary media of exchange; this had the side effect of making him very wealthy, as on his death in 1819, Kamehameha I reportedly left some $200,000 in foreign gold and silver coins, having a purchasing power of over fifty times that amount in today’s U.S. Dollars.

By the 1820s, Hawaiians began to think of currency in terms of dala (‘dollar(s)’) and keneta rather than of pounds sterling, shillings, and pence, or of any other foreign denominations of account. This was partly because of the decimal system, and partly from the frequently regrettable influence of American missionaries. The latter helped induce the new King Kamehameha II (Liholiho, reigned 1819-1824) to abolish the old religion and make some form of capitalist Christianity official, much to the detriment of the health of the native Hawaiians. Where they had formerly fished, gathered and farmed their own food, thereafter they labored for unscrupulous white men from The United Kingdom, France, Spain, Russia, and, most numerous by far, the United States. Among the obvious byproducts were competitive greed, exploitation, poverty, epidemics, and a currency shortage.

A prime cause of the socioeconomic problems that plagued the Hawaiian Islands during the middle of the 1800s was the Koloa Plantation (Kauai, 1836), managed by William Hooper. Mr. Hooper introduced an abuse widespread even into the twentieth century: He paid his laborers only in script which could be spent only at the company store, where everything was deliberately overpriced to create insurmountable debt and prevent workers from leaving; a practice known as peonage. This script was overprinted on French theater tickets and in the same denominations which had been introduced by the arriving New England missionaries (which would be made official by laws introduced nine years later): One dollar, fifty cents, twelve and one-half cents, six and one-forth cents, and three and one-eighth cents, based alike on the United States coinage system and, for the three smallest denominations, on the Spanish and Mexican fractional silver bits, medios, and cuartillas, all legal tender in the United States and more familiar even than federal dimes and half dimes.

By the mid-1840s, native Hawaiians were increasingly dissatisfied with the barter economy. Coined money was in incessant demand and chronic shortage. King Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli, reigned 1825-1854) devoted Chapter 4, Section 1, of his new legal code of 1846 to the official monetary system of the Islands, explicitly tying it to that of the United States. In translation:

“The currency of the Hawaiian Islands shall consist of the dala, valuing 100 cents American currency; the hapalua (‘half’), valuing 50 cents; the hapaha (‘quarter’), valuing 25 cents, the hapawalu (‘eighth’), valuing 12 ½ cents; the 16^th of a dala, valuing 6 ¼ cents; and a copper coin or keneta valued at one cent, impressed with the head of His Majesty, surrounded by the words “KAMEHAMEHA III. KA MOI” (‘. . . The King’), and on the reverse, “AUPUNI HAWAII” (‘Kingdom of Hawaii’). The Minister of Finance shall cause to be minted for circulation, a copper coin described in the preceding section; and with the advice of two thirds of the Privy Council and approbation of His Majesty, he may also cause to be minted any small silver coins of such description and quantity as the said Council shall direct.”

Pursuant to this new law, the Hawaiian government made a contract with the mint of H.M. & E.I. Richards, Attleboro, Massachusetts. The royal agent was James Jackson Jarvis, editor of the newspaper Polynesian, and friend of diesinker Edward Hulseman. The first and only order for 100,000 keneta, hapa haneri (‘moiety of 100’), costing $869.56, was minted in 1846, although the coins were dated for their expected 1847 delivery. When they arrived in Honolulu harbor on board the Montreal, January 14, 1847, they proved to be an extreme disappointment, as they were crudely designed and struck with the King’s portrait almost unrecognizable. There has been some claim that the denomination was misspelled "Hapa Haneri" instead of "Hapa Hanele" (which translates to "part of one hundred" or loosely, "one cent"). However, "Hapa Hanele" is a twentieth century spelling. The spelling "Haneri" was used throughout the ninteenth century and can be found on the $100 and $500 notes issued during the reign if King Kalakaua I. Regardless of the spelling, stories are told that many of the native peoples refused to accept the new keneta coin or threw them into the ocean rather than spend them. Governors of the other islands, nevertheless, ordered quantities of these coins from the central treasury in Honolulu, giving them out in change from tax collections, and presumably as small change in other transactions. By 1862, only 11,595 were still outstanding, this being the last year the treasury disbursed them. They remained legal tender in Hawaii until 1884, and circulated long afterward for convenience, being valued at one keneta apiece at the treasury in exchange for the 1883 silver coinage.

Besides the 100,000 shipped to Hawaii, samples remained with the Richards firm in Massachusetts. A Mr. Wayte Raymond used to travel to Belmont, Mass., to buy them from the original maker’s descendants. This source must have been exhausted before 1956; but this does seem to be the origin of most of the pristine uncirculated pieces. Those recovered from the Islands are generally worn; the best ones are discolored, probably from bilge water aboard the Montreal, in whose hold they had spent many months.

Multiple varieties of the 1847 keneta have been documented. There are two obverse varieties; the “Large Bust” with a “crosslet” 4 (a vertical bar at the right end of the horizontal line), a centered date and thick lettering, and the “Small Bust” with a plain 4, a slightly off-center date and thin lettering. There are also five separate varieties of reverse dies with the wreath displaying 13, 15, 17, or 18 berries. Combining obverse and reverse varieties leaves a total of six:

·       “Large Bust”- crosslet 4 (date centered, tunic laps over 4) - rev. 15 berries (left 7, right 8)

·       “Large Bust”- crosslet 4 (date centered, tunic laps over 4) - rev. 18 berries (left 9, right 9)

·       “Small Bust”- plain 4 (date off-center, tunic laps over 7) - rev. 13 berries (left 6, right 7)

·       “Small Bust”- plain 4 (date off-center, tunic laps over 7) - rev. 17 berries (left 8, right 9)

·       “Small Bust”- plain 4 (date off-center, tunic laps over 7) - rev. 15 berries (left 8, right 7)

·       “Small Bust”- plain 4 (date off-center, tunic laps over 7) - rev. 15 berries (left 7, right 8)

The distribution of the keneta varieties is somewhat skewed: The crosslet 4, 15 berries type makes up about 73 percent of the known population, the plain 4, 13 berries type makes up 17 percent, and the remaining four types make up only about 2.5 percent each. These later four varieties are very scarce and almost impossible to find in uncirculated condition.

The currency question, including the problems of money supply, money standard, legal tender, exchange, and the proper method of regulating these matters, remained a continued problem during the reigns of Hawaii’s next three monarchs. Then when King Lunalilo died on February 3, 1874, without an heir or naming a successor, the Hawaiian legislature began deliberations, and nine days later elected a nobleman by the name of David Kalakaua to the throne, where he reigned as King Kalakaua I until his death in 1891. It was important to this new king to bring Hawaii into the nineteenth century, and he began by modeling himself after European monarchs. He created four new royal orders and several honor guards; he traveled around the world to meet royalty and government leaders; and he talked of a national currency (a dead issue since the unpopular 1847 keneta). During the King’s Grand Tour of 1881, he met officials from the national mints in Vienna, Brussels, and Paris, all of whom had proposals for contract coinages for Hawaii. One of these proposals for contract, from Paris, on behalf of a New Caledonia mine owner, went far enough that the King ordered a sample of pattern five cent pieces to be submitted for royal approval, but an ignorant engraver at the mint designed them with the hated haole (‘white man’s’) inscription “KALAKAUA KING OF SANDWICH ISLANDS” and misspelled the first word of the national motto: “UA” misspelled as “AU”. This caused the coins to be soundly rejected by the Hawaiian government.

Up to that time the money supply of the Islands consisted of gold and silver coins; and it continued to be a heterogeneous collection of coins from nearly all the major countries of the world, with widely varying nominal and intrinsic values, as well as paper certificates of deposit representing coins on special deposit in the Treasury of the Kingdom that circulated in the Islands. The paper tokens were sometimes called “silver certificates” as the coins they represented were mainly silver. The rationale for certificates of deposit being simply their greater convenience in making large payments. Certificates of deposit were first authorized in 1859; it appears that they were first issued in 1866 or 1867. A letter printed in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser of October 28, 1871, mentioned the “great number of certificates of deposit in circulation” and raised the question whether they were all backed by actual coins in the treasury. In its issue of July 6, 1878, the Advertiser remarked that “paper [silver certificates] has become the principal circulating medium”. By the end of March, 1882, the certificates outstanding amounted to $419,000. Two years later the amount had increased to $799,000.

There was something to be said in favor of a Hawaiian national coinage to replace the motley foreign coinage, especially of silver, that composed so great a part of the Kingdom’s circulating medium.  But in view of the fact that Hawaii’s economy was so closely tied to that of the United States, an attractive alternative was a complete integration of Hawaii’s monetary system with the United States, or a simple adoption of the American system. Some action had been taken in that general direction. Laws to regulate the currency were enacted in 1846, 1859, 1872, and 1876. All of these made United States coins the standard for Hawaii, but gave legal tender status to coins of all other countries at their current or merchantable value. The Act of 1846 mentioned earlier, provided that this value should be “established by evidence”, and while this law was in effect the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce had an important part in determining the values of the various coins in use in the Kingdom. The Civil Code of 1859 placed the authority to fix the value of foreign coins in the hands of the Minister of Finance “with the consent of the King in Cabinet Council”; the laws of 1872 and 1876 provided that the value of coins other than those of the United States that were made the standard should be “as fixed by the King in Privy Council”.

Further, the act of 1876 stated “the gold coins of the United States of America shall be the standard and legal tender in this Kingdom in all payments of debts, at their nominal value”, and “the silver coins of the United States shall be a legal tender at their nominal value . . . for any amount not exceeding fifty dollars” and for a stated proportion in payments exceeding $50. This law was meant to put the country on the gold standard, but apparently that objective was defeated by making the legal tender capacity of silver too high ($50), and by the failure of the government to enforce one section of the law which required that “all duties paid on imports shall be paid in gold coins of the United States, or its equivalent”. It was impossible to retain enough gold coins in the Kingdom to remain on a gold standard. In the summer of 1880, Henry M. Whitney wrote: “Although by the above law (of 1876) American gold is declared to be our legal standard and the basis of all business here, our currency still consists, as it did when the law was enacted, wholly of silver coins and silver certificates; the business of the metropolis being transacted chiefly with paper, and that of the country with coin.” Four years later, Theo H. Davies stated that the Act of 1876 “was the result of an effort, or rather a desire, to regulate the currency on a gold basis, without disregarding the fact that the bulk of our currency was silver and not gold. The Act . . . has not been enforced in one solitary instance. It was found to be from the first . . . impractical. . . . By special agreement the law has been practically suspended. It will be seen that the great difficulty which occasioned the enacting of this impractical law, was the excess of silver”. In the spring of 1884, when Davies made this statement, the excess of silver was much greater than it had been in 1876.

Even before the King’s Grand Tour of 1881, Manley Hopkins, Hawaiian Consul General in London, had suggested in 1878 and 1879 to the government in Honolulu the issuance of a bronze coinage for small change. The profit to the government would have been substantial and it was largely for this reason, apparently, that Hopkins made his suggestion. But there was no law on the subject and business leaders in Honolulu said there were plenty of American dimes and half dimes in circulation to supply the small change needs of the community.

Again, a Hawaiian coinage was proposed in 1880 in a report of the finance committee of the Legislative Assembly; reasons advanced in support of the proposal were that a national coinage “would be a great accommodation to business” and that it would “inspire the confidence of the people, and add to the prestige of the Kingdom”. The chairman of the committee that made this report was Walter Murray Gibson. The Wilder Ministry then in office favored the proposal and it won support in the legislature; an act was passed authorizing the Minister of Finance “to purchase gold and silver bullion with any moneys which may . . . be in the Treasury, and to cause to be coined therefrom gold and silver coins” of denominations corresponding to and of equal weight and fineness with the coins of the United States. The ministry in office from September 27, 1880, to May 19, 1882, made no use of this authorization. In the latter year an act was passed to authorize a national loan of $2,000,000; bonds were to be issued at not less than par, to bear interest at six percent, and to be payable, both principal and interest, in United States gold coin or its equivalent. In the state of the money market at that time, coupled with lack of confidence in the government, six percent proved to be too low a rate of interest to attract buyers for the government bonds.

In the spring of 1882, Gibson achieved his ambition to become the Premier of the Kingdom. He allied himself with the King and with the California sugar magnate, Clause Spreckels, and it is no exaggeration to state this triumvirate controlled the government for the next few years. On Gibson’s motion, a few months after he came into office, the Cabinet Council resolved “that the Minister of Finance be authorized to enter into an agreement with Claus Spreckels or other parties for the coinage of a sum of gold and silver not to exceed $150,000”. Although the business was nominally in the hands of the Minister of Finance, the negotiations with Spreckels was carried on by Gibson. He and the California capitalist concocted a scheme which promised to dispose of a large part of the lagging bond issue and to provide the coveted national coinage. In the early part of 1883 the Cabinet Council authorized “the Minister of Finance in concurrence with the Premier . . . to conclude a negotiation with Mr. Claus Spreckels for the coinage of Hawaiian money to be exchanged for Government six percent bonds, as initiated by the Premier”. 

An agreement was made by which Spreckels became the agent of the Hawaiian government in this coinage transaction. As finally developed, the plan was for Spreckels to buy silver bullion and have it manufactured into Hawaiian dollars, half dollars, quarter dollars, and twelve and one-half cent pieces of a total face value of one million dollars, for which the Hawaiian government would give him a million dollars worth of the six percent gold bonds authorized by the Act of 1882. Spreckels applied to the United States Mint and through the interposition of the Hawaiian minister in Washington, D.C., H.A.P. Carter, permission was obtained for the coins to be struck off at the branch mint in San Francisco, with the dies to be prepared at the branch mint in Philadelphia. In arranging the matter, Carter had some correspondence with Secretary of State F.T. Frelinghuysen and several conferences with treasury officials of the United States. He reported to Minister of Finance J.M. Kapena that the treasury officials “regard the whole arrangement as very queer. They said they would have bought your bullion and turned out the money for simple cash. . . . The dollars will not cost over 85 cts. All told, and the other coins not so much. I hope the Gov’t gets the profit. It will be about $150,000 on the million, but what in the world will you do with a million in silver in addition to what you have now? The dollar will be a handsome coin”.

To the Public it would appear that Spreckels’ only profit would be the interest on the bonds, but there was a hidden profit that Carter was alluding to. The silver content of the coins was about 84 percent, six percent lower than was normal for U.S. coins, and Spreckels gained the approximate additional $150,000 profit that Carter was hoping would go back to the Hawaiian government. Under normal circumstances it would have been a Hawaiian ministry office negotiating directly with the U. S. Mint, so the difference between the value of the bullion and the face value of the coins would have been returned to the contracting government. The arrangement with Spreckels, however, was ‘unusual’ and recognized as such at the time. Additionally, one reason it can be surmised that gold coins were not included in the arrangement, even though the law clearly provided for them, was because the profit on silver was much higher. In retrospect it is clear that Spreckels’ primary motive was to make a good profit while the Hawaiian government’s main interest was to fulfill an obligation to Spreckels. The financial well-being of the Kingdom was of secondary importance.

Spreckels himself submitted sketches indicating what was wanted in the design of these coins. Mint Director Horatio C. Burchard modified them, and Charles E. Barber created the master dies and hubs. Five pairs of working dies for each denomination were then sunk. An obvious problem arose in regard to the proposed eighth dollar coin (twelve and one-half cent piece). The United States had no such denomination, and since there was some talk of monetary union between the two countries, the Hawaiian cabinet decided in the fall of 1883 to substitute for the eighth dollar a ten cent piece, corresponding to the American dime. This greatly lowered the cost of the operation, as there was now no need to make special planchets, allowing the use of normal United States dime blanks instead. Interestingly the umi keneta (‘ten cent’) coin shows the words “ONE DIME” in the center in larger lettering than the Hawaiian denomination. The obverse of the coins was designed with a right facing effigy of the King, with the legend “KALAKAUA I KING OF HAWAII wrapped around the top and date “1883” at the bottom with a dot on either side. The reverse of the three larger denominations depicted the Hawaiian royal seal with the national motto worded in pure Hawaiian: “UA MAU KE EA O KA AINA I KA PONO (‘The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness’), with numeric and Hawaiian denomination. The larger size of the dollar coin allowed enough space for a fancy depiction of the royal seal draped with an ermine cape, flanked by two Ali’i (noblemen) and topped with a crown [see top of page].

When reports of the negotiations in Washington were received in Honolulu in May, 1883, Thomas G. Thrum, publisher of the Saturday Press, interrogated the Minister of Finance but the minister’s reply gave little information beyond the fact that Hawaiian coinage was to be provided. The business community showed concern over the probable inflationary effect of adding a million dollars in silver to that which was already in circulation and believed by many to be in excess of the needs of the country. An ominous factor that soon entered into the discussion of the money question was the serious depression in 1884 when the price of sugar dropped to a very low figure.

The first installment of the Hawaiian silver coinage, $130,000 in half dollar pieces, arrived in Honolulu on December 9, 1883. Immediately, three citizens, W.R. Castle, S.B. Dole, and W.O. Smith, fearful that the introduction of so much silver into the Kingdom would cause rapid inflation, and also probably seeking a confrontation to embarrass the government, brought two successive legal actions in the Hawaiian Supreme Court in an effort to prevent the government from carrying out the agreement with Spreckels. Initially they petitioned for a writ of mandamus to compel the Minister of Finance to accept only gold coins for the gold bonds which the government was to give Spreckels as payment for his silver. If successful this move would have effectively killed the introduction of the silver coinage. The writ was granted on December 18, but on appeal the government secured a reversal on the ground that mandamus was not the proper remedy. The trio then sought an injunction on January 7, 1884, but it was denied on the ground that the Minister of Finance had given public assurances that the gold bonds would be exchanged only for gold or the equivalent value in silver. The court’s reasoning was that since no illegal act was about to be committed, there could be no grounds for an injunction. In fact, to put a stamp of legality on Spreckels’ payment of silver for the gold bonds, the Privy Council had previously met on December 18 and had declared, on a motion by Gibson, Hawaiian silver coins “to be legal tender, and receivable in like manner as silver coins of the United States of like denominations”. In effect, the Privy Council had declared the 84 percent fineness of Hawaiian silver to be of equal value to 90 percent fine U.S. silver.  Ultimately, after the court decision of January 7, there was no recourse for those who feared financial disaster.

Spreckels, who arrived from San Francisco on January 9, 1884, with two of his business associates, W.G. Irwin of Honolulu and F.F. Low of San Francisco, proceeded to put the Hawaiian silver into circulation through various outlets that were available to him, such as the plantations which he controlled, the firm of W.G. Irwin & Company, and the banking firm of Spreckels & Company, which opened for business January 14, 1884. It was reported by the Hawaiian Gazette, January 16, 1884, that the first of the Hawaiian coins to go into circulation, a half dollar piece, was taken in at the box office of the Music Hall in Honolulu on the evening of January 10, and was presented to the actress, Miss Louise Beaudet, as a souvenir. The Daily Bulletin reported the following amusing item on January 19: “The new coins are not looked upon with favor by the Chinamen. John was tendered a Hawaiian quarter in exchange for a bucket of poi, he examined the coin carefully and returned it saying, ‘no good, me no savee, no see chicken’. He missed the glorious America eagle.”

Production of the Hawaiian silver continued through the spring of 1884 with all pieces dated 1883. Some 26 additional sets were minted in proof from the original dies; these were intended only for presentation to Hawaiian dignitaries, not for public sale. After June, 1884, the working dies were defaced at the San Francisco Mint; they are said to remain in the Hawaiian State Archives, while the original hubs supposedly remain in the Philadelphia Mint.

In the spring of 1884, while the operation of putting the Hawaiian coinage into circulation was in progress, Minister Carter wrote from Washington in a private letter: “The most damaging thing now in our country, is that a Gov’t can, as a favor, to a private individual permit him without legal sanction to flood us with whatever he pleases and make it legal tender and make $150,000.oo out of it – what limit is there to such proceedings? Both law and public opinion seem paralyzed. There was not a shadow of warrant for it in the coinage act. Probably the next move will be to declare photographs of Mr. Spreckels legal tender for any amount.”

By the middle of June the entire million dollars of Hawaiian silver had been received in Honolulu. It consisted of $500,000 in dollars, $350,000 in half dollars, $125,000 in quarter dollars, and $25,000 in ten cent pieces. Nearly half of it was placed in the Hawaiian treasury as a special deposit for which certificates of deposit of a similar amount were issued.

This influx of coins nearly doubled the supply of silver in the Kingdom. Although the disaster a large portion of Hawaii’s business community feared did not necessarily come to pass, the introduction of a million additional dollars of silver coincided with, and was believed to be at least partially responsible for, a sharp rise in the rate of exchange. At the same time, the price of sugar was dropping precipitously, and a serious depression gave planters and business men additional cause for worry. The low price of sugar was one of several reasons for the high cost of exchange.

The Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, vitally concerned with the money problem, began on December 12, 1883, a consideration of the question which extended into many hours of earnest discussion; committees worked on various phases of the problem and the chamber adopted resolutions embodying its views and recommendations. The position taken by most of the members was that the introduction of all this new silver made still worse an already bad monetary situation, there being too little gold and far too much silver. The chamber strongly favored a gold standard with only a limited quantity of subsidiary silver coins; very soon, however, it was forced to recognize that the Hawaiian silver had come to stay; accepting that fact, the chamber tried to cooperate with the government in working out the best solution possible under the circumstances. A committee of the chamber, in a letter to the Minister of Finance dated January 9, 1884, said it had been found that the law of 1876 could not be carried out with the proportion of silver then in circulation: “The Chamber is therefore of the opinion that the only safe course is to limit the importation of silver, to the local requirements of the Kingdom, and to withdraw from circulation, at the expense of the Treasury, all silver coins other than the new Hawaiian and the United States coins.”

When this letter was written, only about half of the new Hawaiian coins had been brought into the Islands. Apparently the chamber hoped that no more of it would be introduced. It was a vain hope. Not only was the remaining half million brought in, but the Cabinet Council resolved and announced that from June 1, 1884, the law requiring payment of customs duties in United States gold coin would be enforced. United States Minister Rollin M. Daggett reported that the latter action was taken “to meet the gold wants of the Government, and possibly in the hope of compelling a return of a reasonable proportion of the gold for which the products of the Islands are sold, and which is left in San Francisco for the benefit of exchange”. It is possible that Daggett was partially responsible for the cabinet resolution, for he said that failure to enforce the law of 1876 was a “continued violation of the spirit of the reciprocity treaty (with the United States)” which, “with silver at a discount of from 5 to 8 percent, as it now is”, amounted to an “unwarrantable reduction of duty charges to shippers”. But the abrupt decision of the government caused embarrassment to the business community, and upon request of the Legislative Assembly the cabinet deferred for a time the enforcement of the resolution. Daggett continued to prod the Hawaiian government upon the subject and was informed, as he already knew, that the problem was before the legislature and that a satisfactory solution could be expected.

For many days the currency question and all of its complexities, was before the Legislative Assembly of 1884. The Chamber of Commerce and the local newspapers contributed some facts and ideas to the long symposium from which finally emerged a new act to regulate the currency. This law provided that from December 1, 1884, the gold coins of the United States should be “the standard and legal tender, at their nominal value in the payment of all debts, public and private”; that the standard silver coins of the United States and the Hawaiian silver coins should be legal tender up to the amount of ten dollars (reduced from the previous limit of $50 for the purpose of promoting the circulation of gold); that all other coins should be accepted in the treasury at no more than their bullion value, but that, for a period of sixty days following approval of the act, all coins other than those of the United States and Hawaii would be received at the treasury at their nominal value in exchange for Hawaiian coins, all coins thus received to be sold and the proceeds of the sale to be delivered into the treasury in gold coins of the United States; if necessary, in order to maintain a proper equilibrium between gold and silver, the Minister of Finance was authorized to sell, in exchange for United States gold coins, any silver coins (i.e. United States or Hawaii) that might be in the treasury. In addition, the law provided that all outstanding certificates of deposit, except ten dollar certificates, would be redeemable at face value in the United States gold coin; when so redeemed they were to be cancelled; and further issues of certificates of deposit were to be based on deposits of United States gold coins.

It was believed that the Currency Act of 1884, faithfully executed, would provide a sound and workable monetary system for the Kingdom. But the currency troubles were not over, due to the unwillingness or inability of the Gibson administration to exercise a proper discretion and do what was necessary to maintain the equilibrium between gold and silver and to faithfully carry out the provisions of the law. The Chamber of Commerce threatened drastic depreciation of Hawaiian silver in order to protect the business and industry of the country. In 1886, still another act to regulate the currency was passed by the legislature. A significant change by this act was the elimination of the legal tender status of United States quarter, half dollar, and dollar coins, so that after 1886 the circulating money of Hawaii consisted of United Sates gold coins, dimes and half dimes, Hawaiian silver coins and certificates of deposit in denominations of five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred dollars.

By October, 1886, the cabinet adopted a resolution purporting to authorize the coinage of Hawaiian gold coins; a $20 piece to be called a “Kalakaua”, a $10 piece to be called a “lei ali’i”, a $5 piece to be called a “crown”, and a $2 ½ piece to be called a “half crown”. This resolution was never carried into effect though. Then in 1892 a law authorized the coinage of ten, five, and one cent pieces, but the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893 put a stop to this project.

Though the plan to exchange the Hawaiian silver coins for Hawaiian six percent gold bonds appeared to be blocked by the opinion of the Hawaiian Supreme Court, Spreckels nevertheless acquired half a million dollars’ worth of the bonds. Two Honolulu newspapers reported that the money thus loaned to the Hawaiian government by Spreckels was in the form of Hawaiian silver coins. Besides this, Spreckels’ firm of W.G. Irwin & Company made a special loan of more than $130,000 to the Hawaiian Treasury. Hence the Hawaiian government was heavily indebted to the California capitalist.

Even after the monarchy was overthrown, Hawaiian silver continued to circulate, but after Hawaii became a territory of the United Sates in 1898, the U.S. Treasury decided that the Islands should use only United States coins of the normal designs and denominations. Finally, in 1902 the Chamber of Commerce recommended that all Hawaiian silver be redeemed for United States silver, and the following year Congress passed a law providing for such redemption. Accordingly, orders went out to banks and businesses that the Hawaiian coins on deposit, as well as the large number of circulating pieces, be redeemed and shipped back to the mainland for melting down. Thereafter the coins with the benign countenance of Kalakaua, which had caused such controversy, passed from history into the furnaces of the San Francisco Mint, except for those remaining in numismatic collections throughout the world. 

Ultimately, redemption of Hawaiian silver made the dala a scarce coin, especially in choice condition; the hapalua is also difficult to find in top grade. On the other hand, the hapaha is somewhat more common in mint state owing to the discovery of many rolls of uncirculated specimens after World War II; these reached coin dealers instead of the treasury melting pots. The following are said to be the official quantities redeemed and melted: 453,622 dala pieces (Net 46,348 plus 26 proof), 612,245 hapalua pieces (Net 87,755, plus 26 proof), 257,400 hapaha pieces (Net 242,600, plus 26 proof), and 79 Umi Keneta (Net 249,921, plus 26 proof).

HAWAIIAN COINAGE SPECIFICATIONS:

Keneta or cent, 1847:

Diameter: 27 millimeters

Weight: approximately 9 grams

Composition: copper

Edge: plain

Number coined: 100,000

Net mintage after melting: 11,595+

Five keneta or five cent unauthorized pattern, 1881:

Diameter: 20.5 millimeters

Thickness: 1.4 to 1.7 millimeters

Composition: nickel

Edge: plain

Number coined: 200

Umi keneta or dime, 1883:

Diameter: 17.9 millimeters

Weight: 2.5 grams

Composition: .840 silver, .160 copper

Edge: reeded

Number coined: 250,000 + 26 proofs

Net mintage after melting: 249,921

Hapawalu or eighth dollar pattern, 1883:

Diameter: 20.6 millimeters

Weight: 3.125 grams

Composition: .840 silver, .160 copper

Edge: reeded

Number coined: 20 proofs

Hapaha or quarter dollar, 1883:

Diameter: 24.3 millimeters

Weight: 6.25 grams

Composition: .840 silver, .160 copper

Edge: reeded

Number coined: 500,000 + 26 proofs

Net mintage after melting: 242,600

Hapalua or half dollar, 1883:

Diameter: 30.5 millimeters

Weight: 12.5 grams

Composition: .840 silver, .160 copper

Edge: reeded

Number coined: 700,000 + 26 proofs

Net mintage after melting: 87,755

Akahi dala or dollar, 1883:

Diameter: 38.1 millimeters

Weight: 26.73 grams

Composition: .840 silver, .160 copper

Edge: reeded

Number coined: 500,000 + 26 proofs

Net mintage after melting: 46,348

Compiled From These Sources:

Andrade, Ernest. The Hawaiian Journal of History, Volume XI: The Hawaiian Coinage Controversy – Or, What Price a Handsome Profile? The Hawaiian Historical Society, 1977. Pages 98-100, 107.

Bailey, Paul. Those Kings and Queens of Old Hawaii. Los Angeles: Westernlore Books, 1975. Pages 287-288.

Breen, Walter. Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins. New York: Doubleday Books, 1999. Pages 671-673

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