Can anybody identify this countermark?
Wahoo554
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Here are images of a draped bust quarter and a 2 reales. The 4 pronged mark is not exactly the same on each, but it is pretty similar. Just curious if anybody knows anything about it, thanks:
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Nope ... Never seen anything like that.
There are quite a few dot patterns, grill patterns of various sizes and complexity, suns & sunbursts of different types and other punch designs that are known. A lot of them have been ascribed to Caribbean Islands over the years but many more are "tentative" identifications as opposed to those with solid attributions. Dr. Brunk does not list many of the symbol types in his most recent work but IIRC his previous work on world countermarks - "Merchant Countermarks on World Coins" (1989) - had much more coverage on these marks (my copy is in storage somewhere). The auction catalog of the Ray Byrne collection of Caribbean coins & tokens also contained a lot of symbol c/s pieces as well. There are several other earlier works on this type of counterstamp that I do not have in my library.
I've been wanting to know more myself.
Both Carribean and West Indies get thrown out as possible sources. Some are attributed to specific islands but there are plenty that are variations on similar marks that seem to be lumped together.
I'm having a hard time finding Classic head cents with cool countermarks, so I picked this one up recently.
Hoping to research it more..