Chopmarks: Desired history or a ruined coin??

... and the rest ...

 

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A few months ago I came across an anonymous Roman quadrans that had the letters AU punched into it. Doug Smith suggested the coin may have been part of a university collection, and the curator may have counter-stamped the piece to discourage theft. Since then I've learned that that was a common, if deplorable practice.

I bought the coin nonetheless, for a song. It was clearly undesirable to anyone else. Would I like to own the coin without the mark? Absolutely, but these cost several hundred dollars apiece in higher grades. So all things considered, I'm quite happy with the acquisition. It's a scarce, higher-grade example with a bit of unfortunate recent history, but it gives me something to post in threads such as this.

Roman Empire, Anonymous, Domitian to Antoninus Pius
AE Quadrans, 3.25g, Rome mint: AD 81-161
Obv.: Diademed and draped bust of Venus right.
Rev.: Dove standing right, S-C.
Reference: RIC II 24 (p. 218)
Notes: Countermark "AU" in field above dove, possibly from a university collection.

 

Not exactly letter punches but considerable value can be added if it is a mark of the right collection. Ancients with the eagle stamp applied by the Gonzaga family to all coins in their collection sell for several times their equivalent in the same coin plain. Of course the allowable rules for a collection from the 1500's don't hold quite the same if we are talking about a vandal of the 21st century. Example:
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1705589
Note that they not only applie a stamp but they inserted a piece of foil under it in contrasting metal. The example has a silver eagle on the bronze coin.

At Natural Bridge, Virginia, there is a graffito applied to the rock by George Washington. To the best of my knowledge, GW did not vandalize any 1794 dollars (unless you count that Delaware River story). Imagine the auction fervor if only he had used a chop. I do agree that in the other 99.99% of cases, collector marks ruin a coin.

 

Woah...that's some Inception-level counterstamping.

 

To me , any marks by collectors to indicate they owned it should lower the value , doesn't matter to me if they were from the 16th century or today . It's ruining a coin . Counter stamps by a government are a different story and show part of the history of said coin . Chop marks are sort of in between to me , in that they cheapen the coin but do add some history .

 

I've got a couple of identically "countermarked" Japanese 2 Sen coins dated 1877. Still don't know why they were marked with a "2". Maybe by Japanese merchants for the benefit of foreign sailors visiting Japan who couldn't read the "二" in Japanese? Anyway, I like chops and other marks. They kinda give a coin an "archeological" aspect.

 

I didn't know that collectors used to punch their coins, what I do know was that painting them with catalog numbers ect. was common in the late 1800s.

 

See my review of the new Gullberg book here:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/new-book-on-chopmarked-coins.250400/

Medoraman is not exactly correct. Merchants did not stamp coins so that they would know them. That myth came from the 1920 Britannica article written by Charles Seltman who advocated his own theory that coins were invented when merchants stamped nuggets of electrum. In fact, the purpose of trade is exchange: once the coin leaves, it is not coming home... Try it yourself with "Where's George?" the online registry for circulating paper dollars.

If you read this history - and others - you will see that often, chopmarked coins were bagged and never examined again. That counters the theory that the stamps were meant to identify the "shroff" or money-changer. IN fact, according to Gullberg only one chopmark has ever been identified with a specific merchant, the British tea seller Tait & Co.

Chopmarks are fascinating. They are an example of an historical custom from a time and place, China and East Asia, c. 1600 to 1935. Yes, you can find other kinds of counter-stamps. Chopmarks are neither unique nor unprecedented in the broad history of commerce. They are however a thing in and of themselves for their time and place, different from other kinds of counter-stamps.

 

What about the Bank of England stamps on Spanish dollars? "To make its dollars pass, stamped the head of a fool on the neck of an ass?"

http://www.sterlingcurrency.com.au/files/P-28799_1.jpg

21-page journal article here, more than you ever wanted to know...
http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/2000_BNJ_70_11.pdf

 

Overdates, repunched Mint marks, die doubling... If the die has been messed with, no coin from it can be perfect. For you a Proof-70 RPM is impossible? to say nothing of Love Token, which you must call Hate Tokens because they really ruined the whole side of a coin...

All in all GD, I am surprised by your opinion. You have a right to it, of course, just as you granted that others can like chopmarks or whatever else. Just sayin', I would not have predicted that to be your opinion on the matter...

 

It does indeed seem to be true. In fact, I have used the "ring test" myself and I am not alone in that. The Chinese "shroffs" could do a coin a second by balancing and ringing with their fingers on one hand. I have had to be laborious in balancing the coin on my finger and tapping the coin with a pencil. But it works. You can easily tell a struck coin from a cast. I believe that with training - they had "shroff schools" for apprentices - you could learn to hear more detail.

 

This US Philippines 1903 Peso got the treatment:

 

The amazing part is that a chopmark and a countermark are the exact same thing. A chop mark says "this is good silver, it can circulate here." A countermark often says the same thing. The difference is that one of them is in Chinese and unidentifiable, while the other is more often in a western language and is usually attributable. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

I'm sure the next thing you'll say is that countermarks were applied by an official entity. While this holds true in many cases, it is far from universal.

I love thinking about this bigger-picture kind of stuff. The influences of processual archaeology on my academic upbringing have really made me aware of how coins from different eras functioned in basically the same way, and how one can teach us about the other.

 

And for the record, I love coins with identifiable collector's marks. I also love that many collectors hate them - it keeps the prices down!

UNITED STATES, Trade Tokens. Belleville, New Jersey. Tobias D. Seaman, butcher
CU Token Belleville (New Jersey) mint. Dies by John Gibbs. Struck 1837.
T. D. SEAMAN BUTCHER./ * BELLEVILLE *. Bouquet.
* A FRIEND */ TO THE CONSTITUTION, Bull standing right; c/m: minute D above.
Rulau HT 204B; Low 155

Ex Don Miller Collection; William Dunham Collection (B. Max Mehl, 3 August 1941) ​

 

The problem here is where you draw the line. The Bank of England countermarks? Sure. What about VOC countermarks, the Dutch East India Company? Are they a sufficient monetary authority? What about more local or regional banks?

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't entirely disagree with you. If I had the choice between an 8 Reales that had four or five Chinese chopmarks and an unblemished specimen, you can be sure I'd take the later. Heck, even if it were an "official" countermark, I'd probably prefer the original.

I suppose what I should have said is that the difference semantic. What it really comes down to in the marketplace is collectability. Countermarks can be more easily collected because we know who issued them and why. A Bank of England countermark will always sell for more because there are those who specifically seek it out. And a coin with some random "good" chop? No one cares, and few ever will. I bet that Tait & Co piece sells for a nice premium.

 

Well, I have read first hand testimonials of merchants going through silver coins presented to them as payment and sorting out coins already containing their chop in 19th century China. It might have been in Kahn I read this, another first rate detailed first hand account of economics and coinage in China in the 19th-early 20th century. The merchants would sort out coins already chopped by them, then look at the rest very carefully to verify authenticity. They would then chop these "new to them" coins so that they could save time later if they saw them again.

I think money in the US moves much easier than in 19th century China. Even using cash coins as evidence, most mint marked cash coins from the Ching dynasty are found near where they were minted. Its highly unusual to find a Xinjiang minted cash near Beijing or Shanghai for example. You might have better luck finding a barber half in circulation than this. So, evidence is that most coins DID circulate in small areas in 19th century China, and as a corollary it would make sense for merchants to chop coins in circulation in their local community to save time later.

So, for that reason, I would vehemently disagree with the author of the new book if that is his conclusion.

 

This book is not ANA official, so caveat emptor.