Obverse: Liberia’s Coat of Arms …
shield containing picture of a 19th-century ship arriving in Liberia. The ship is symbolic of the brig Elizabeth, the first ship used to carry the freed African-Americans slaves from the United States to Liberia in the early 1820s. Above the shield the national motto of Liberia appears on a scroll: The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here. Below the shield another scroll contains the official name of the country, Republic of Liberia.
(Another opinion about the ship is that it represents the US warship Alligator, an 86 ft, 198-ton topsail schooner built at Boston Navy Yard in 1821 for the suppression of slavery and piracy. Her first commander was Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton, and first assignment was to select and acquire territory to resettle free African Americans. On board was Rev. Eli Ayres on behalf of the American Colonization Society. On this voyage and on a second voyage to West Africa, Alligator captured several slavers. In 1822 she engaged and fought pirates in the Caribbean. Later that year she ran aground on Carysford Reef in the Florida Keys and sank, without loss of life. The reef is now named Alligator Reef.”)
(Yossi Dotan, Watercraft on World Coins, Africa and Oceania 1800-2011, Vol. III)
The plow and the shovel represent the dignity of labor and hard work through which the nation will prosper. The rising sun in the background represents the birth of a nation.
The palm tree, the nation’s most versatile source of food, represents prosperity.
The white dove with a scroll represents the breath of peace.
See next post —
Reverse: PAMIR under full sail going right
Pamir was a four-masted barque (Bark) built for the German shipping company F. Laeisz. One of their famous Flying P-Liners, she was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium’s inability to finance much-needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail-trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.
