Description

Charles II. 1660-1685. Silver Medal 1670, 32.64 g. British Colonization. Unsigned. Busts conjoined, he armoured and draped. CAROLVS . ET . CATHARINA . REX . ET . REGINA. Rv. A terrestrial globe. DIFFVSVS . IN . ORBE . BRITANNVS . 1670. Plain edge. 41.4 mm. Eimer 245. MI i 546/203. Sehr schön / Very Fine. Überprägungsspuren am Rand und kleine Randfehler / Traces of double strike near edge, small edge nicks.

From the auction Münz Zentrum Albrecht + Hoffmann GmbH 56, Köln, November 1985, lot 2252.

Great Britain made its first tentative efforts to establish overseas settlements in the 16th century. Maritime expansion, driven by commercial ambitions and by competition with France, accelerated in the 17th century and resulted in the establishment of settlements in North America and the West Indies.

By 1670 there were British American colonies in New England, Virginia, and Maryland and settlements in the Bermudas, Honduras, Antigua, Barbados, and Nova Scotia. Jamaica was obtained by conquest in 1655, and the Hudson Bay Company established itself in what became northwestern Canada from the 1670s on. The East India Company began establishing trading posts in India in 1600, and the Straits Settlements (Penang, Singapore, Malacca, and Labuan) became British through an extension of that company’s activities. The first permanent British settlement on the African continent was founded at James Island in the Gambia River in 1661.