Counterstamped Shield Nickel

I hear you, Dave. That's what I should have done. I'm retired now, so all's good in my world.

Bruce

 

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Thanks again Bruce, I will definitely ascertain you if I run across any more of these! You did an excellent job and I'm starting to appreciate these type of coins a lot more now!!

 

Fantastic job of checking it out, Bruce! I'm really impressed. You should hire yourself out as a genealogist.

Steve

 

I enjoy the research, Heavy, and find the history fascinating. Thanks for posting your coin.

Bruce

 

Thanks, Steve. Just so you know, I work for food...especially jelly donuts.

Bruce

 

You Da man Bruce

 

That is amazing Bruce. Based on the date of the coin, the style of the lettering, and the fact that the likely issuer was in the metalworking business and would have used a stamp, that is likely it.

How does all of this work as far as getting a listing in Brunk? I thought I heard once that Brunk needed at least two examples before he would list a c/st. I was not sure if that was because he wanted to make sure it was not an individual punch counterstamp....

 

Brunk will list ALL counterstamps in his index as far as I know, JBK, but not in the body of his work, necessarily. That's reserved for ones he feels are important or interesting in some way. There are plenty of "onesies" listed in both sections of his book. I do have a vague notion of some rules he has for listing initial or number-only stamps. This is what you may be thinking of. Most of these stamps he doesn't even list unless he's seen more than one example. I believe that's how he handles them.

Bruce

 

The "bible" of countermarked coins is Greg Brunk's 2003 book. Rich Harzog has made a list of all C/Ms recorded by Brunk. Yours seems to be unlisted (as is often the case). See this page:

http://www.exonumia.com/art/cmb.htm

That's just for the letters "D" to "I"!

EDIT:
Oups! Sorry! I just saw there was a 2nd page to this thread, with Brunk being mentioned! I'm new here! I am not yet familiar with the format...

 

I think in the first part he lists only those C/Ms which can be attributed to a country with reasonable certainty. In the index (second part), most C/Ms are know from one or two coins, which is not enough in most cases to know in what country it was countermarked. In this article,

http://images.ourontario.ca/Partners/Cobourg/0000487051T.PDF

he mentions the case of J.W. Millar, who C/Med only US silver coins. We wouldn't know he was Canadian if he had not added "Toronto" with a second punch.

In addition, most C/Ms in the index part were sent to him by collectors from all over. He points out that there is, in his estimation, an approximate rate of 5% errors in the C/Ms reported to him (letters missing or misread, etc.). And as a matter of fact, I just got one which was read "J FINLAY" by the dealer, but there is a clear trace of an "S" on the rim, so it's actually "J FINLAYS". Without "S", I would say it is in Brunk, but with the "S" it is actually unlisted.