colonial/british coin question

coachleonard

I'll ask this on the liteside and darkside forum:

Has anybody heard of a practice in the American Colonies where British farthings and halfpennies were
re-stamped (NOT incused) with a "1776" date, I guess as some kind of show of loyalty to independence??

It seems like I faintly heard about this once-- then again, I maybe I just thought I did.

Reason I ask is, was cleaning off some worn out dug coppers (pretty much all British) supposedly dug at a Virginia site. I did some olive oil cleaning on one super worn/dirty old farthing, mainly so i could tell if if it was a George II or Charles II farthing. To my surprise, a very faint but
discnernable (and kinda big) ".776" shows up about a third up the face of the coin in big numberals. The first and third numerals aren't clear
but it does kinda look like at least a ".776". Then again, maybe its all a trick of the eyes.
Tried to scan it, the "numerals" don't pick up.

MacCrimmon

Nope, never heard of the "1776" Loyalty C/S, but they would be cool to have.

Farthing Types

A 'tell' on the reverse is Britannia's arm. If pointing towards "A", it is George II.

coachleonard

well, so far a couple of people have weighed in, and so far no one has heard of such a practice.

Daltonista

A Lewis Morrison countermarked some coins with the date 1776, apparently, but I'm afraid I can't tell you what host coins are known to exist with his c/s. My bet is that he did it a hundred years later to commeorate the Centennial. Your best source on this would have to be "Merchant and Privately Countermarked Coins" by Gregory G. Brunk, who catalogued well over 10,000 examples of known c/m's and their host coins.

Happy Hunting!
Tom