I have seen chop marks aon colonial coins. I know they are from China, but can anyone tell what or where each individual mark means or is from?
Welcome to the forum. Most chop marks were done by asian merchants to check the silver content. Each mark would represent that specific merchant.
National Dealer -Do chop marks always lesson the value of a coin? (To me it adds to the historical interest.) Does any one here have a lot of coins with chop marks? What kind of coins? Has anyone seen a Morgan with chops? As you can see, this is something I'm curious about.
Most of the US coins you will find that have chop marks are trade dollars. This was the US attempting to allow US coinage to compete with the Spanish Reales in trade to the orient. 99% of the time, chop marks do lower the value. I have clients that pay extra for them, so it is really up to what the collector likes. Just like toning.
DrStrangelove - I have collected Spanish colonial silver in all denominations since the mid 70's. But I have yet to add even one coin to my collection with chopmarks. I likely never will unless it is some rare variety that I cannot obtain otherwise. Now that's just me and my taste. I know others who collect nothing else but coins with chopmarks. But that's just them and their taste. Now let me ask you a question. Say somebody had a coin they wanted to sell you and you wanted to buy it. But the seller took a knife and carved his initials into the surface of the coin first. Would you still want to buy it ? Or would you consider the coin to now be damaged ? Well that's what chopmarks are - they are the mark, or the initials if you will, of some Chinese merchant from 200 yrs ago. But to me - it doesn't matter how old the marks are - only that they are there. To me they are damage. To others they are an interesting historical aspect. Chopmarked coins are kind of like hobo nickels - only the artwork is not as extensive. There are those who will collect nothing but hobo nickels and will pay outrageous prices for some of them. The same thing is true of chopmarked coins. It all depends on what you - the collector - like.
Hey GDJMSP, how about counterstamps? This market is really becoming hot. I understand your logic, and counterstamps certainly fall into this catagory.
I too have customers that prefer chopped coins. Some people consider them damage, others think they add character to the coin. That's one of the great things about our hobby...you can customize your collection to your own liking.
man.......reading this thread makes me not feel so freakish for intentionally tracking down holed coins. They just seem to have more personality to them.
There is absolutely no wrong way to appreciate coins. I have clients who collect bent, altered, holed, cut, mutilated, and every possible form a coin can be in. While most of this does not personally appeal to me, I can understand the logic behind it.
I wouldn't say"most coin collectors". But, like any other area of numismatics, there are those who are passionate about them. LINK (click here)
Counterstamps are an entirely different story. But you're right - they are becoming quite popular and some bring quite high prices on the market. But they don't appeal to me personally and I don't collect them. The reason I say they are different is because a counterstamped coin is when one govt. takes the coin of another govt. and makes places their own official mark on the coin so that it may circulate in their country instead of in the country that made the coin. Counterstamps are similar to overstrikes in that regard but countermarks were used with a bit of a different idea in mind. Take the Spanish 8 reales of the late 1700's and very early 1800's - the British counterstamped these coins and assigned their own values to them for use in the British Empire. But the value was about half that of a similar British coin. At the time - the Spanish coins were .90 silver - the British coins were .92. Not much of a difference really in silver content. Certainly not enough to warrant a 50% discount. So I rather think part of the purpose for the British doing this was for political reasons - to shove a sharp stick in the eye of the Spanish king if ya know what I mean
