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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cwtokenman, post: 887411, member: 2100&quot;]I looked this counterstamp up in my book of counterstamps by Brunk (2003), and this counterstamp is listed. The very interesting thing about this one is that Brunk lists it as a fantasy counterstamp. He has traced many specimens, and has found this stamp on coins as late as the 1840s. No American or British silversmith is known to have used such a mark during the 1840s. There are hundreds of coins, and even cast counterfeits with this R F hallmark. Known coins include US large cents, quarters, halves, English halfpennies and shillings, Spanish American silver, and other sorts of coins which would NOT have circulated side by side.</p><p><br /></p><p>Brunk states that while the countermarked coins are old, the stamps are not genuine. He mentions the first known listing in E. Zay&#039;s Histoire monetaire des Colonies Francais (Paris, 1892: 200), where the R F counterstamp was interpreted as &quot;Republique Francaise&quot;. Zay attributed the c&#039;stamp to the island of Guadeloupe, whose government did countermark coins with initials in the 1790s and early 1800s. Brunk indicates that large numbers of R F fantasies were produced both in Europe and America since the 1880s, or even earlier. These items were produced for sale to collectors of French colonial and West Indies countermarked coins. </p><p><br /></p><p>Of the many pieces that Brunk had examined, none of them appear to have circulated after stamping. All of them had XF to Uncirculated countermarks. Most genuine countermarks are quite worn, but these worn out coins with little to no wear showing on the countermarks on virtually all known examples is a sure indication that they were not made as the hallmark of a silversmith who would have placed them into circulation for advertising. </p><p><br /></p><p>Brunk has photos of this R F counterstamp, and they match those as shown in the photos above.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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