With their former countrymen divided and lacking a monarch after the English Civil War, Colonists seized an opportunity to create their own currency, establishing a mint in 1652 in downtown Boston — the first in New England and second in North America — to produce three silver coins: a threepence, a sixpence, and a shilling.

BOSTON - One of the rarest colonial coins will be on sale from a coin dealer in Boston. The 1652 New England threepence is expected to fetch a price tag well over a million dollars. There are currently only three known coins of its kind,

It always helps to have a little bit of coin around — whether that be commonplace coins you keep in your purse for everyday usage, “coin” as in general money or even, in some special cases, rare coins that you might be able to sell.