In 1797 and again in 1804, the British issued an emergincy issue of silver coins that converted from another country to English with a counterstamp. Most of these pieces were portrait style Spanish Milled Dollars. Other country's dollar sized coins were counterstamped also, but those pieces are very scarce to rare. Here is an example of the 1797 counterstamped dollar. These pieces had an initial value of 4 shillings and 9 pence. There were also a much smaller number of 4 reale pieces that were counterstamped. I was able to win this one in an auction. The role the 4 reale pieces played in the British economy is unclear. The prevailing opinion was that these pieces were used to make 1,000 ounce bags of counterstamped dollars come out even. Some say they were paid to Russian soldiers. At any rate the British people did not care for the coins. One limeric went like this. "To get their coins to pass, the mint stamped the head of a fool on the neck of an ass." Another comment was: "Two heads but not a crown." This referred to the fact that this large silver coin was no valued as a crown, which was five sillings.
Both coins are excellent examples. I used to have a counterstamped 4 reales of Charles III, Madrid, many years ago, among the first world coins that I purchased in the early 1980s. That coin was sold, along with many others, in 1993 to help raise cash for the down payment for the house.
Never had the right one come around at the right time but I do have a bad fake and a holed example that I think is real.
