Chop mark on a silver coin

COOL!
looks almost like Mayan mask chopmarks.

 

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They must have had a lot of time to waist, forging two intricate tiny dies just to stamp this coin. It would have taken countless hours by a master metal worker to make the two distinct Cap and Ray designs (any idiot could have made the strange looking cross). I do not think they were playing around but maybe trying to fool collectors, but then again what would be the purpose as the coin is now worthless because of the damage. I am not so quick to pass judgment on this coin yet as I have heard rumors of fake chop marked Mexican coins in the past, made to pass as contemporary examples. Are there contemporary examples??? Maybe in museums??? Or specialized reference books??? If a fellow only uses KM as their guide to what does and does not exist, let me give this example; I consider myself an expert in the Xian Feng reign of Chinese cash, KM might give one or two varieties of a coin that actually has 200 to 300 varieties, I have one reference on this ten-year period that is larger than the entire KM catalog of world coins 19th century edition. Worse yet telling someone their coin is fake without even doing the research in my opinion is poor numismatics…..

 

chop mark

any silver dollar pass through oreintal will have chop mark to proof it is real silver content. i got mexican silver peso with chop mark too. other i have were japanese silver yen and chinese silver yuan.

 

I'm with GD on this. There is nothing new about coins being `stamped' for fun or indeed for commercial purpose. What would be `new' is some sort of book on them. Sadly such a book doesn't exist because there were so many and they are relatively worthless. When we come across coins like this we just have to say `don't know who. don't know where, and don't know why. But it sure isn't anything official though.'

Here's (what I believe to be) one such example. It's had me scratching my head for years trying to figure out where the c/s's on the obverse were from.........see if you can make anything of it. Sure, they look like they could be from at least two places going by `similar to' known counterstamps.....but (?) . By the way just to add a touch more mystery to it, there are two chinese chop marks on the reverse which are recorded in FM Rose's book. So it did circulate in the Far East.




My own conclusion is that it was some kind of ranch coin (?) The Double `C' perhaps? As in `Move awn 'lil dawgies' n'all that.

Then again, I could be wrong......;-)

Ian

 

it looks like someone tried to slap some big earrings on Ferdinand!

 

Hello,
I have contacted two experts in Mexican Numismatics and this what they had to say. Both said this counterstamp was used on other coins and both were skeptical on its authenticity. Now that I know this is a real design I am going to stick to my statement above and say someone was practicing for fraudulent purposes.

 

Could you please ask these experts which coins the counterstamp can be found on and report their response back here? I'd really like to know.

Ian

 

chop mark

even today, if you pass-by south east asia. check those u.s.$100 and $50 dollar bills. almost all were stamp logo from their respective money changer. some bill even stamp two to three logos. that's mean it is a good currency. so people from oriental don't have to check every bill that they got. just look at the logo. it's a real money.

 

Have you tried "Counterstamped Coins" by Brunk? Of course it isn't complete and probably never will be, but I think it is the closest to what you are describing.

 

No book on earth could possibly keep up with every piece of folly concerning the marking of coins. Let's face it, at one stage even some collectors were counterstamping their coins as a mark of `ownership'.

Knowing where to look for data is indeed 90% of the battle! If i'm to be perfectly honest, i've not come across the book you mentioned. I'm not sure that it is worth my while trying to get hold of it for the very limited requirements I have and the chances of getting it over on my side of the pond via a library are nil. As such I guess i'll just have to rely on the jungle drums network. Some day a contact such as yourself will spot something somewhere which triggers the `ah so that's what it is' realisation, and then (if i'm still alive by then) you'll get back to me.

My main source for data on countermarked /counterstamped coinage has been the section in the first edition Bachtell covering that subject area. It was dropped from subsequent editions. God alone knows why, because it is excellent reference material. It's limitation is that it only covers official and recognised marks on silver dollar size coins from around the world. That leaves a myriad of other coins (and my subsequent knowledge relating to them) well out of the picture.

Ian

 

I hereby own this coin that I have now ruined!

 

Yes and I almost sold it on Ebay for $99. I read it went for auction at $400.....I have a few more. The coins with chop marks are rare it said

 

Yes, an 1896 One Yen with chop marks. Almost sold it for $100. I read it went for $400 at an auction. Are they really worth that much?

 

Yup, an 1896 One yen with chop Marks, and I almost sold it for $100. I read an auction house that sold an exact one for $400. Please inform me.....

 

Pardon the error, my laptop is acting up again. The coin in question is an 1896 One Yen with chop marks. Sorry about that...

 

A 1896 yen is not worth 100 dollars with chopmarks. Unless the year is wrong which I suspect is the case, I highly doubt that it is worth that much. Even in XF condition, this is not a coin that people are willing to pay that much. Recent sales on ebay do not seem to suggest any 1896 yen sold for 400 dollars - none even sold for half of the suggest price. If you said 1874 or the trade dollars, I may have believed it.

The exception is if it had the Tokyo or Osaka countermark and depending on which one it is, they may be worth higher - that is without the chopmarks and without major circulation contact marks.

You can argue all day and night and if someone wants to pay that much, please feel free to sell to them. I will join the sales marketing team and make a handsome profit too. I know I will not pay high prices unless it's a rare year / variety or it is going for a bargain price.

A picture will be very handy for starters.