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Message:: [QUOTE="BRandM, post: 3260616, member: 22729"]Here's two ugly coins with ugly counterstamps on them. These two are from a group of nearly 200 pieces  I've picked up over the past few years from a man in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His parents operated bars in Belfast for over thirty years, and they routinely saved coins with political messages during the Troubles period. Most of them have sat in bank bags and trunks for 30 or 40 years, some longer. The toning and environmental damage ranges from nasty, like these two, to beautifully gold-toned near new coins, but all the messages are ugly. The "Brit Out" is on a 1979 English 50p and the "IRA" stamp defaces the Queen's portrait on a 1979 50p. "IRA" is the Irish Republican Army paramilitary, a group responsible for  hundreds of deaths during the Troubles. "Brit Out" (British Out) is a call for Britain to withdraw from Northern Ireland and reunite it with the Republic of Ireland, something the north vehemently opposes. All these coins are original, authentic reminders of the brutal times suffered by the Irish people during the last three decades of the 20th century. Not pretty, but important to preserve so as not to forget. Bruce[ATTACH=full]857603[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]857604[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]