United States Draped Bust Dollar 1799 A coin with a difference. Once again numismatics joins our two nations. Britain had a shortage of the Kings Coinage from 1751 to early in the 1800’s. There were 4m dollar sized coins brought to the Bank of England for use in Britain, only 400’000 had an octagonal counter-mark, the remainder had an oval counter mark with George III head inside. The dies used were those used for Maundy Money. All the same date only 6 pieces are known to exist to day, all dated the same, and how could this happened? Maybe a trader with connections in the United States bought a small quantity say one bag. All the pieces that exist today are the same date with the same Octagonal Countermark stamp. The stamp is that of King George III. Two heads on one coin. This was a time of the Industrial Revolution and Britain had a shortage of Silver & Copper. One answer for the shortage of copper coins was the creation of Tokens mainly in copper with a few in Silver and Gold. During 1797 people were allowed to import Spanish Dollars to the Bank of England. The Spanish dollar was valued at 4s.9d. This coin was sold in recent times in 1979 from a collection called Whetmore. Price 5’600 gbp. The condition I am not quite sure as the counter stamp created a numismatic question on the grade,members of the forum you can give your
SwK I now choose your coins to look at. They are interesting with nice stories. Maybe you can give a column stating the best place to buy such beautiful coins. Devi
I am not a fan of counterstamps (I don't find them attractive, and choose not to collect them myself). However, the history of this piece is pretty cool.
The only counterstamped coins I really enjoy are Stone Mountain halves, for multiple reasons. One is the history beyond why they are counterstamped; another is that they are typically counterstamped in areas that complement the design rather than obliterate it; and the best reason is that they are classic commemorative halves.
