Good God...When does a defaced coin warrant a premium.

I thought of offering one cent lol. Though I think with the shipping he wouldn't go for that.

 

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Could this have been issued by a private store as was store tokens were?

 

Here is where you can read up on why these were counterstamped:

http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/French.intro.html

Here is the part about this coin:

"By an edict of October 1692 Louis XIV ordered older billon coinage still in circulation to be restruck with new designs and reissued as sous of 15 deniers. Some of this coinage was counterstamped and sent to Nouvelle France where they circulated at fluctuating values. Coins dated 1692-1697 were included in this grouping and can be positively assigned to this second counterstamped group."

Ryan now has one that is an overtype with a lily counterstamp to boot. Maybe he'll post it? :thumb:

Ribbit

 

Ahhh, very good answer claycad. If mine were just a little nicer it could easily bring that. I paid about $2400 for mine, roughly 150 to 200 times what it would be worth without the counterstamp.

I am not disputing that the counterstamped coin in the OP is of little to no premium value in today's market, but the title of the thread asked when a defaced coin warrants a premium, and since a counterstamp was the object being discussed, I thought that I would provide an example that has a considerable premium.

Counterstamps are more desirable (and thus more valuable) when the identity of the counterstamper is known. Initials can be difficult to identify, but it can be done. I have documented a few myself, one (W.H.J.) even of a private citizen in pre Civil War days. Those initials are on an 1802 8 reales piece in my collection. When individual letter stamps are used, rather than a single custom punch, chances are lessened that it was done by a merchant or business, and hence, less likely it can be identified. But, if history continues to repeat itself, over time the cent in the OP will gain value because it was defaced.

Just to share some more about the W.H.J. item if anyone has interest, I bought the coin at an estate auction of one of William H. Johnson's descendants. There was an old i.d. tag in the same small cloth bag. I did not see them (or I would have bought them), but there were also some GAR medals, and W. H. Johnson was stamped on the back of one. I had a location for Mr. Johnson from the i.d. tag, and that gave the buyer of the medal a starting point for research, which he so kindly shared his findings with me.

"The Gar medal, which I think is called a Testimonial Badge, belonged to a gentleman named William H. Johnson. With help, I was able to find the following about him. This man was from Girard, Ohio and was born in Youngstown in 1847, died in 1923. He enlisted on August 13th 1862, at the age of 15 and ended up in the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company D. He ended up seeing nearly 3 years of active service, mainly in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the middle South. Some of the battles he was in include
the second battle of Murfreesboro, and the battle of Stone River. He was discharged in Cleveland on July 5th, 1865. This information is from the book "History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio" by Joseph Green Butler. You can read more about him and what he did for the community of Girard on Google Books at:

books.google.com/books?id=iRgVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=W.H.+Johnson,+Girard,+Ohio&source=web&ots=3m3d2g_tKN&sig=-W0cmgzzK2iX2Bgdvldy8LpWGx8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

In regards to the GAR, Mr. Johnson was in TOD Post 29, based in Youngstown. They were officially founded in March 1880, taking their name from Ohio's Civil War governor, David Tod, who was a native of Youngstown. The post formally closed in 1945 with the demise of its last member.

The badge itself is three tier, the top being an enabled blue square, with a silver eagle in it, surrounded by decoration. The middle is a hanging shield that has the writing " Co. D. 115 O.V.I ". The bottom part is a star with a logo in it. The back of the star is engraved " Presented to W. H. Johnson. Commander 1908. TOD Post No. 29. GAR. ". "

Background information such as that is but one reason why I find counterstamps to be interesting objects to collect. They are not just seemingly random letters smashed into old coins, they can be a window to glimpse into the past. Often, coin collectors imagine whose hands a coin may have been held by. In this case, I know a little bit about who one of them was.

 

Nuts.