Country guide
Puerto Rico
From Spanish colonial pesos to the 2009 “Isla del Encanto” quarter — Puerto Rico’s coinage is a compact, fiercely collected story: one provincial silver series (1895–1896), a dollar conversion in 1900, and the first U.S. circulating coin to carry Spanish text.
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Coin entries
Coins of Puerto Rico
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History & collecting
The story behind the coins, one tap away.
- Spanish colony from 1493 (Columbus’s arrival) to 1898; Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States under the Treaty of Paris, December 10, 1898.
- Under Spain the currency was the Puerto Rican peso, divided into 100 centavos and equal to 5 Spanish pesetas — “1 PESO = 5 P.TAS” on the coins themselves.
- The island’s only own coinage: the 1895–1896 provincial series (five denominations), struck at the Madrid mint. Earlier circulation was dominated by countermarked foreign coins (notably a fleur-de-lis countermark applied in 1884) and Mexican silver.
- Currency conversion, Act of April 12, 1900: Puerto Rican pesos were redeemed at 60 cents U.S. per peso — not at par — and the redeemed silver coins were melted at the Philadelphia Mint.
- The Foraker Act (1900) ordered the provincial peso out of circulation. The Banco Español de Puerto Rico was renamed the Bank of Porto Rico and issued dollar-denominated notes; the bank was liquidated in 1913.
- Alfonso XIII provincial silver (1895–1896): 1 peso 1895, 20 centavos 1895, and 5, 10, 40 centavos 1896 — Madrid mint, the young king’s portrait by Bartolomé Maura (fineness: .900 for the 1 peso; .835 for the 20 and 10 centavos; the 5 centavos’ fineness is disputed).
- 2009 Puerto Rico quarter (District of Columbia & U.S. Territories program): the San Juan sentry box (garita) and the hibiscus with “ISLA DEL ENCANTO”.
- The 1895 peso in high grade — the 8.5-million mintage was savaged by the post-1900 U.S. melting of redeemed coins.
- The 1896 10 centavos (700,000 struck) — conditionally rare; even MS64 examples rank among the finest known.
- The tiny 1896 5 centavos (600,000 struck, 16 mm) — scarce in high grade.
- 2009 quarters: low-mintage circulation issues (P 53.2 million, D 86 million — among the lowest of the State/Territories era) plus 2009-S 90% silver proofs.
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