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1869 Brazil 2000 Reis, PCGS MS63. Courtesy of PCGS TrueView. Click image to enlarge.

For almost my entire career in professional numismatics, I have sported a rather robust beard. The origins of this are quite simple. I attended a private high school where one of the unbreakable rules was to be clean shaven every single morning. In fact, there was a chemistry teacher who enforced this rule so vigorously that I was even given detention at one point for my 5 o’clock shadow! While that problem was solved for the rest of the year by keeping an electric razor in the locker, I think it was at that moment I decided a lifetime of going clean shaven was not for me.

Facial hair has been memorialized on coins throughout history. A journey through the world of coins will reveal some quite epic beards throughout the years!

Pedro II of Brazil was the last king of Brazil, assuming this status at the age of five. King Pedro is well regarded historically and oversaw one of the most stable and prosperous times in Brazilian history. The end of the Brazilian monarchy came to a sudden end with a bloodless coup d’etat in 1889 establishing the first Brazilian Republic, despite the fact that Pedro was immensely popular with the Brazilian people. Pedro spent the last couple years of his life exiled in Europe, but history has remembered him well in Brazil, and he remains an extremely popular historical figure within the country. In the context of this article though, he is remembered for a very large, full beard that is demonstrated on numerous coins over his long reign. Copper issues in circulated grades can usually be found for a few dollars, while common silver issues in uncirculated grades can generally be had in the range of $100.

1866-Mo Mexico Peso, PCGS MS66. Courtesy of PCGS TrueView. Click image to enlarge.

Another bearded fellow who graced coins during a colorful period of time was Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Maximilian was an Austrian Archduke of the Hapsburg-Lorraine line who, via the intervention of Napoleon III of France, was installed on the throne after the post-civil war government of Benito Juarez suspended repayments on foreign debts. The logic was that Maximilian was the descendant of Charles V, the king of Spain when the Aztecs were conquered, but this plan did not account for many factors. Most problematic was the fact that being a foreign outsider assuming control of a country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean would lead to resentment, no matter how much Maximilian tried to appease opposing factions. Despite this, he was crowned in 1864. While distracted by its own civil war, the United States never recognized the legitimacy of Maximilian’s government and continued to recognize the previous regime. Invariably, this led to a bloody end for Maximilian, who was executed by firing squad after a brief reign in 1867. The coins of Maximilian are of a side profile and display his long, duel-pointed beard quite well. The values of these pieces have jumped up quite a bit over the last few years. Circulated pesos now sell for several hundred dollars while the gold issues start at several thousand dollars, with large jumps in prices on each grade within the Mint State spectrum.

(1705) Russia Silver Beard Token Novodel, PCGS SP58. Courtesy of PCGS TrueView. Click image to enlarge.

With the current popularity of beards, we are lucky that our current governments do not take a page out of the book of Peter the Great in Russia. In 1698, Peter instituted a tax on the privilege of wearing a beard, starting at 30 rubles a year, depending on one’s position in society. Not officially repealed until 1772 by Catherine the Great, these taxes were not popular and the government was not particularly successful at enforcing these. One interesting thing that did come out of this period were Beard Tax Tokens. Those who had paid the tax were required to carry these tokens to show that the tax was paid. The most common of these pieces, issued in 1705, depicts the lower portion of a face and beard with “Money Taken” written in Cyrillic. With numerous varieties of these, the most common types will usually start at a couple of thousand dollars.

Regardless of your own facial hair preferences, it is always neat to see what has and what has not changed over the last few thousand years, and we are lucky to have this information enshrined on the coins we collect!