2 cent with counter mark help

Can someone give me any information or opinions on this piece? I found a countermark list on the web and it did not have a D.D.Chase on it.
Is this a genuine piece? Does it have any value or is it just damaged?

 

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ask the expert:
@BRandM

 

Isn't a counter stamp like this effectively a way for a merchant to advertise his place of business in a world before mass advertising?

 

"Just damage"? Of course it's just damage, just like the old trade dollars with chopmarks. If someone attempted to catalog every coin that happened to have a countermark on it, there would probably be thousands of pages with one-line descriptions for each one. You might find one for this store or that store, one for this family's first child, one for a birthday, one that doubles as a love token, etc., etc., etc.

Surely the coins are genuine, and the people who defaced them are/were real. Are there people who collect them? Yes! Just like there are people who collect die cracks, die breaks and grease-filled dies.

Chris

 

I think Randy is exactly right. A very small part of my notes collection is a selection of $1's which have rubber stamps of businesses (I think mostly bars). It's advertising. I would suspect that "D.D.Chase" is some sort of merchant.

 

IF they can be attributed to a specific person, merchant, place of business, event etc. they have value as a collectible with some significance. But if they are just a name or random letters, they are pretty much just damage. Usually the only way a name punch such as this one can be attributed is if you can link the punch to some manufactured article that they used the punch on.

 

Chase Manhattan Bank goes back to the 1800's. Could there be a connection?

 

There was D. D. Chase from northern Iowa that fits the time frame from the date on the coin, 1866. Not sure if the coin and him are the same but it's a start.

 

So now the OP needs to get on ancestry.com and find the great great great grandson of this guy, that will pay big bucks for this coin!

 

You are probably referring to the Rich Hartzog list. Rich includes a statement that this list is incomplete. The gravestone of Daniel D. Chase is a great start to possibly find that that person or another person of the same name had some business or similar connection worthy of making this list. If you find such a connection, you might consider e-mailing Rich along with a photo of the coin. It could qualify to be added to the more than 13,500 coin list. That alone makes your coin more valuable.
I purchased a counter stamped large cent with a name (don’t remember the name). My research linked the name to a career bank executive in the Northeast. This coin is buried deep in my collection labeled with the particulars described above.

 

Sorry to inform you, but Rich Hartzog passed away almost 2 years ago

 

Of course it has value, alurid. The fact that it's on a 2-Cent piece helps a bit...a little unusual on this denomination. Probably 15 to $25 would be a good guess.

The chance on ever finding D.D. Chase is slim but the fact that it's a prepared punch suggests that he's a least a merchant of some sort. People don't go to the trouble of making this type of punch to strike a coin or two. Unfortunately, there were probably hundreds of D. Chase or D.D. Chase names out there at the time...probably 1870s or a little later.

Thanks for showing us your coin.

Bruce

 

IMHO, the value of our OP's otherwise common two cent piece is somewhat enhanced by this so-called "damage" a.k.a. a counterstamp. Having a surname preceded by two initials enhances the possibility of attributing this maverick. Whereas a common 1866 two cent piece might sell for $12-$15 at a show, I'd venture that this stamped, Civil War era piece would fetch $20 or so from a c/s collector.

Hartzog's list is long obsolete. Thousands more have since surfaced. Many were listed in Brunk's and Rulau's catalogs back in 2004 and a great many have yet to be listed. Being listed or as yet unlisted is meaningless. It's the positive attribution and attached history that adds to the appreciation and value of counterstamps.

My take on our OP's c/s is that it's most likely a period piece, stamped within perhaps ten or so years of issue. The font style suggests this to me. It was produced by a single punch as opposed to the application of individual letters. D.D. Chase was likely a member of a masonic order. Either he or a fellow mason would have made this name punch. He may have applied for or secured a patent on some product. If this was the case, a positive match might be found on one of his products. While this is a long shot, I've managed to do this a few dozen times over the years. Note that the use of c/s'd coins as advertising was far less prevalent, following the war.

As a serious collector of counterstamps for forty years, I've long treasured what others view as junk!

 

So sorry losing Mr. Hartzog. Thanks for the info... last emailed him 4 years or so ago and he responded...did not personally know him.
I am an interested, though not serious collector of c/s coins. The obviously well-informed other collectors have spoken.

 

That is too funny, my birthday is July 4th.

 

Just as a side note, don't want to sidetrack this thread.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants that came through Ellis Island in the 18/1900's with no paperwork and couldn't speak English, were given paperwork that said: Date of Birth July 4, ______

There were so many immigrants coming through Ellis Island. Immigration officers that couldn't communicate with the immigrant, just guessed their age and filled in the year they thought they were born. There saw no time or resources to verify anything, they just pushed them through.......Next! Next! Next!

 

Thank you for your time and effort to reply with a lengthy and informative post.

 

Thanks to everyone for your posts.

 

While in the Army I broke my left ankle on July 4, 1975. Lol

 

For the history buffs. Check 5.5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island