Post your Cut and Countermarked Coins
Boosibri
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Post them if you got them along with some educational details of the piece.
During the French and Indian War, also called the Seven Years War, the population on Jamaica swelled with an influx of British operations to support the war. The island had always had circulating currency from other nations due to the pirate trade but nothing official for use within the British occupied territory.
Full weight coinage would quickly flow out of the island so to create a circulating currency for the island the British marked the Spanish Milled 8,4,2,1 and 1/2 reales along with the gold denominations, with the “GR” counter mark for “Georgius Rex” King George. The standard weight of a Spanish milled dollar would have caused it to circulate for a little over 4 shillings however the official value was placed at 6 Shilling 8 Pence to ensure that these full weight pieces were not exported from the island.
This coin originated from the Byrne Collection, to Irving Goodman, to Millennia to Cardinal. It likely has an earlier link to the Howard Gibbs collection as lot 1546 in his 1966 sale. This is the finest graded piece of any type for Jamaica 6S8P’s.
Comments
1794 Lima mint 8 Reales. A shortage of silver in Britain at the end of the 18th century was partially alleviated by the use of captured (mostly) Spanish bullion, countermarked with an oval punch displaying the head of George III. The price of silver fluctuated considerably in this period. Although the face value of an 8 Reales was initially intended to be 4 shillings and 6 pence, by the time they were ready for issue, silver prices rose, which resulted in a tariff of 4 shillings and 9 pence being applied.
Will be adding one or more from Jamaica maybe one this year love the history. Are there some dates rarer than others for the 8 reales? Are they mostly from Peru & Mexico or can they be found from say Guatemala & Bolivia? Thanks for posting.
Collecting interests: Coins from Latin American (2020-present)
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I won’t be adding others in all likelihood as this is a piece for type for my Americas crown set.
Most pieces have jist coins dated 1756-1758 as this this was the period when they were struck and the British chose uncirculated coins as host coins.
Most are on Mexican 1756-1757 8Rs, few on Lima 8Rs and I haven’t seen any Guatemala. Bolivia had not minted milled Pillars yet so that isn’t conceivable.
Latin American Collection
Here is a Costa Rica 2 reales stamped on a Costa Rica 2 reales. While the host coin is in the style of the Central American Republic, it was minted about a decade after Costa Rica left that federation. These counter stamped 2 reales are not rare, but I believe only a few examples of the 1849 2 reales are known without the stamp. My understanding is that the two reales were stamped very shortly after minting because of debate relating to whether old federation symbols should be used or replaced with new, Costa Rican proper symbols.
https://images.pcgs.com/CoinFacts/40234038_202060433_450.jpg
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I used to collect Counterstamped coins like crazy, now I've only got a handful, including this world coin. Appears to be a silversmith mark. Low grade, still cool.
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As @robp2 pointed out, at the end of the 18th century Great Britain experienced a silver shortage and reused mostly 8 Reales from Spain as a Dollar. What are less common were 4 Reales used as 1/2 Dollars. This Mexican example, unlisted by Krause-Mishler, is interesting because the assayer and mint mark are inverted; a two-year type.
I wonder what kind of journey this coin experienced during its time in circulation to make its way from Mexico City to Great Britain and then preserved by collectors for over two hundred years.
1697 halfcrown, holed, with countermark W.B
William Burch was a silversmith with this monogram, registered in London, March 1788.
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Some much scarcer British emergency c/s in here so far with some history lessons to boot... Very nice coins.
I'll share mine as well... I purchased raw from the UK and it came back in my favorite grade.
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A famous merchant counterstamp on a US half dollar. Houck’s Panacea was made in Baltimore and was an alcohol based “cure all”.
A cut reale.
A countermarked devalued 8 reale from the Potosi Mint scandal in Peru. There was a scandal where many coins were produced on lightweight and reduced purity planchet at the Potosi mint. It was too expensive to melt the offending coins so they were counterstamped reducing their value.
A chop marked US Trade Dollar that was used in the far east.
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Here is what I believe to be a genuine 8 Reales but the chop marks do not look right although I can't figure out why anyone would do that. Comments?
Not a genuine 8R
8 Reales Madness Collection
Here's a cut 4 reales:
And a cut 8 reales:
both obviously traveled to China.
Makes sense. Fake chop marks on a fake coin. I should have realized. Thanks @TwoKopkeiki for the insight.
Hi TwoKopeiki - would you be able to offer more details on why the 8 reales might be counterfeit? I don't see any of the modern counterfeit indicators like incorrect edging priority, and Bolivian coins of these few years are generally poorly made with or without the broken castle punch.
First off, apologies for my one-liner response above. I was on the go and was not able to give my thoughts on it. I also broke one of our cardinal rules, which is to definitively put a coin into a specific genuine / counterfeit category based only on image. I should always try to provide rationale why I believe the coin is more likely to be counterfeit or genuine based on information we have to work with.
@threefifty While all your points are absolutely correct and broken castle (late state castle punch in this example with the diamond chip very visible) and overall crudeness are not automatic reasons to condemn a C3 Potosi Portrait 8R, this one seems to be even more crude than usual. First thing that jumped out at me was the R punch that has the base curling upwards towards a fat leg almost looking like a B. The I punch seems to have a strong notch at the bottom. T punch, as well, but to a lesser extent. While seeing notching/waving at the base of the letters is not uncommon, it is usually an effect of metal flow during the strike and not a function of the punch, which seems to be the case here. There are other minor punch What also makes me suspicious is that both obverse and reverse were created with these same overly-crude punches.
I'd love to see the edge and have the owner perform specific gravity testing, which I suspect would show lower quality silver alloy.
8 Reales Madness Collection
Weight 26.07 grams. I haven't perfected specific gravity testing, but is the weight discrepancy sufficient to declare it a counterfeit?
Here is the edge
That's a great positioning of the edge shot, since it shows alignment to the obverse legend, but can you post 4 shots all the way around?
There are some odd shapes in this segment, but would be good to see the whole thing.
8 Reales Madness Collection
Thanks for posting those. I don't see any obvious overlaps and the edge segments seem to be both uneven, paired in places, as well as some of those circles look to be more like squares with corners cut off. Combined with the low weight, I would say it's most likely a counterfeit.
By the way, you have some heavy hitters familiar with Potosi coins way more than me - perhaps they are around? @realeswatcher @jgenn
8 Reales Madness Collection
Perhaps we should pull the 1779 Potosi 8R messages out to a separate thread? Kind of off the path of this thread topic.
Montserrat. ex Roehrs, ex Eckardt, ex Pridmore. RARE this nice (when genuine ;-))
Tortola. The rarest variety, 1st stamp of finely wrought lettering and an early die state of that stamp (later show up to extensive deterioration). Replaced further on by various cruder "Tortola" and "TIRTILLA" stamps. Deeply impressed for this issue as well. ex Pridmore, Ex Spink SNC, ex_Stack's, ex Rohers (DNW). Additional c/m on head of unknown significance.
This is a bit of a cheat, the cut is circular, but extremely rare. Not exactly a countermark, but a distinctly shaped hole for a ribbon on a Charles II double crown 1660-1662, used as an amulet after receiving the King's "healing touch". ex UBS 2004. This is the only touchpiece of Charles II NOT on a Roettier gold angel token (they made 1000's of those starting in 1664, i.e. on an actual coin) that I can trace, though several of the smaller gold tokens are auctioned annually Obviously, created before the tokens existed. This extensive BNS monograph on subject, link below, notes that Charles himself, during his exile, carefully cut holes in UK gold coins issued before Cromwell to present to his supports, perhaps he did this one too. https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/1979_BNJ_49_11.pdf
Cut AND counter marked.
But both the coin and the counter mark are contemporary counterfeits:
Apart from the hole, this is an attractive counter marked piece.
Here's one that still has me stumped. Most recently from the 2011 DNW sale of the Roehrs collection, it was cataloged as:
"Leeward Islands (excluding The Virgin Islands)
——— Sixty-Six Shillings, BRAZIL, Maria I, counterfeit 6,400 Réis, rev. countermarked varner raised within an irregular shaped indent on a central plug, 10.91g/168.3 gr/7.01 dwt (Gordon 210, this coin; Prid. Not Attributed 17, this coin). Coin fine, countermark about fine but somewhat indistinct; the only recorded specimen £2,500-3,000
Footnote
Provenance: Glendining Auction, 16-17 June 1937, lot 422; bt R.C. Gordon"
My belief is that the asymetrical hallmark on this coin is actually from a broken symetrical punch, and that the silversmith's name was actually "WARNER". Warner is a common name among early American silversmiths, especially in Baltimore. Varner is unknown. But so far I have been unable to match the countermark on the coin to any other known hallmark.
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Viking peck marks are cuts, so I’m in theme with this one…
The Vikings had a habit of making test cuts on coins to assess precious metal quality.
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This counterstamped quarter is from diesinker Joseph H. Merriam, and it his thought to be his earliest involvement in numismatics. (Circa 1854.)
I imagine him stamping his name and address onto this coin and sending it out into circulation like a wish upon a wishing well.
It is considered unique. Ex. David Schenkman
Edit: Wrong thread, guys. Please excuse my incursion into the World Coin forum 😆
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