09/12/2025
Lot 1109 in next week's Auction 53!
MICRONESIA: Yap, rai stone money (43.5kg), ca. 1871-1931, Opitz p.316-21, Quiggin p.144, 62 x 58 x 9cm, 96lbs, post-O'Keefe type, made from crystalline calcite, holed in the center, accompanied by two wooden storyboards (with sawtooth hangers for mounting) and a flag of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (used 1965-1980), one of the heaviest examples of this famous ethnographic currency to ever appear in a public auction! XF
ex Clifford M. Ray Collection
Known locally as raai or fei, the Yap stone money is a disc-shaped stone with a hole in the center for transportation, with sizes ranging from 12 feet to a mere two inches in diameter. The rock for the stone money is not found on Yap itself and was instead sourced from Palau, located some 280 miles (450km) away. Prior to the arrival of European traders, a Yapese chief would grant permission to a work crew to sail to Palau, manufacture the money, and bring them back in their outrigger canoes.
Stone money was produced as late as 1931, and a contemporary survey found a total of 13,281 pieces on Yap. However, many were destroyed and used for road construction during WWII, and only half are estimated to have survived to the present day. As a result of their scarcity, the Yapese government imposed severe restrictions on their export in 1965 and has since allowed only a small number of stones to leave the island, mostly as gifts to foreign dignitaries.
The consignor arrived on Yap on June 1, 1971, as a member of Seabee 6207 of US Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 62. For eight months, the 13-member team worked on a goodwill mission to upgrade Yap's civic infrastructures, including the building of culverts, a bridge, a school, and housing for the local people. As an expression of gratitude, the Yapese presented stone money as gifts to members of Seabee 6207 before their departure on January 31, 1972. This includes an example currently on display at the US Navy Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme, CA. By the same token, the consignor was able to export the stone being offered here.
