Bermudian pound

These commemoratives were similar in appearance to the British crowns, but featured Bermudian designs on their reverses.

[2] Because of the rising price of precious metals, the diameter of the 1964 issue was reduced from 38 to 36 millimeters and the silver content dropped from 92.5% to 50%.

For nearly four hundred years Spanish dollars, known as pieces of eight, were in widespread use on the world's trading routes, including the Caribbean Sea region.

However, following the revolutionary wars in Latin America, the source of these silver trade coins dried up.

An imperial order-in-council was passed in that year for the purposes of facilitating this aim by making sterling coinage legal tender in the colonies at the specified rating of $1 = 4s.4d.

However, in Jamaica, British Honduras, Bermuda, and later in the Bahamas also, the official rating was set aside in favour of what was known as the 'Maccaroni' tradition in which a sterling shilling, referred to as a 'Maccaroni', was treated as one quarter of a dollar.

It wasn't until 1 January 1842 that the authorities in Bermuda formally decided to make sterling the official currency of the colony to circulate concurrently with Doubloons (64 shillings) at the rate of $1 = 4s.2d.

Contrary to expectations, and unlike in the Bahamas where US dollars circulated concurrently with sterling, the Bermudas did not allow themselves to be drawn into the U.S. currency area.

As far as United Kingdom law was concerned, Bermuda still remained a member of the overseas sterling area until exchange controls were abolished altogether in 1979.