A Penny for Your Thoughts

Who says a penny doesn't buy much anymore? A Bermuda penny delivers a history lesson worth its wait in gold.

See for yourself the next time you're handed change. On the reverse side of a Bermuda penny is a hog. That may seem like an odd image to engrave on a coin — until you do a little research.

At one time the islands of Bermuda were known as the Hogge Islands. That's because hogs were the only creatures that English settlers found in Bermuda after the wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609. The wild boars were descendants of hogs brought here a century earlier by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez.

It seemed only fitting then that Bermuda would choose to commemorate its signature hogs after King James I granted the colony permission to mint the first English coins in the New World in 1615. Crudely made from low-grade copper, so-called Hogge Money was never popular with islanders. By 1624, most Bermudians had stopped using the coins.

Bermuda did not have another coin of its own until 1793, when the mint in Birmingham, England, issued the islands another penny. After that, no other Bermuda coins were produced until the commemorative crowns issued in 1959 and 1964. Then in 1970, after the United Kingdom introduced a decimal monetary system, Bermuda again began regularly minting coins, including a penny that featured — what else? — a hog.

"Hogge money was Bermuda's original coinage," says Terry Pitcher, assistant director of corporate and financial services for the Bermuda Monetary Authority. "We take pride in following the precedents set by Bermuda's forefathers by featuring the image of the original 'hogge' in our current one-cent coin."