These were brought to me in the market on Saturday. I suspect some of them are Spanish or Spanish Netherlands, but does anyone know any more? The crop box was the same for all of them - the largest is about 20mm across. The titles list them as coins A to F:
Hopefully someone will come along that can give you more complete info Paddy but if my memory is working correctly they're Spanish colonial marvedis of various denominations from one of the South American mints. And I'm thinking that one (#2) with the bull on it is from the Caribbean area. But I could be wrong on all counts.
Looks like some Spanish 8 Maravedis in there. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=spain 8 maravedis&ct=coin Often sold as "pirate money" I think. The counterstamps were revaluations or confirmations of value. The 641 is probably a revaluation date of 1641.
I think the "pirate money" angle is mostly eBay hype. There was much counterstamping and revaluation of the maravedis in Spain in the 1600s. They should be covered in Spanish catalogues like Cayon and possibly the Krause SCWC 17th C. volume.
For what it's worth, here are my thoughts on these coins. The first coin is a 4 maravedis which has been officially counterstamped to raise its value to 8. From 1603 to 1659, there were six series of counterstamping the copper coinage in order to increase their value and thus raise revenue: 1603: the 2 & 4 maravedis have their value tripled 1636: the pure copper maravedis (not the billon ones) also have their value tripled 1641-42: the 2, 4 and 8 maravedis are increased in value to 6,8 and 12 1651-52: the 1 and 2 maravedis are quadrupled in value 1654-53: the 4 maravedis are doubled to 8 1658-59: as there were practically no 2 maravedis left in circulation, a new, tiny 2 maravedi was issued. This coin is now one of the rarest Spanish coins, even those of gold and silver coins. Within a very short time of its issue, however, all 1 and 2 maravedis were counterstamped to double their value. The second coin is not a maravedi, but a 2 cuartos billon coin (i.e two quarters or half a real) of Felipe II, minted between 1566 and 1591. This is clearly shown by the dotted inner circle on the obverse and reverse, which is never found on maravedis. (Ignore Numista where these are incorrectly labelled as 2 maravedis. Google “2 cuartos Felipe II” to see the real thing). The third coin is a two maravedis from Burgos, of pure copper, minted between 1602 – 1621 (reign of Felipe III) or Felipe IV from 1621 to 1626 when the design changed (no shield). Numbers four and six are four maravedis which were counterstamped to increase their values. Spain in this period was engaged in expensive and prolonged wars (the 30-Years War) and was practically bankrupt, in spite of Peruvian silver. Its soldiers were paid in maravedis so taking in maravedis and restamping them to twice their previous face value was an effective but unpopular way of halving the cost of its armies and paying small debtors. Counterstamping to raise the nominal value of the coin could only be done with copper and billon coins as Spanish silver was the international money of the day and could not be treated in such a cavalier fashion. Number five is a maravedi, but too worn for ID purposes. And finally, two points. First, no Spanish coin of the period featured a bull. It is most certainly a lion which appears on many maravedis and whose dies were designed by somebody who could recognize a bull when he saw one, and draw one, but who probably had never seen a lion in the flesh. (There are of course Iberian pre-Roman coins with bulls, but none in modern times). Secondly, I may be wrong, but I cannot recall any maravedis being produced in the overseas Spanish mints- the ones for Santo Domingo were actually minted in Seville. It wouldn’t make much economic sense to take up time in mints such as Lima, Potosi, Mexico etc to mint small value coins, which of course is why the colonial mints generally produced the larger 8 and 4 reales for shipment back to Spain, or ingots of silver if the mints were working flat out. As far as I am aware, maravedis were shipped out as ballast on the ships sailing to the New World.
They all minted them, not for shipment back to Spain, but for local use. And yeah, you're right, the Spanish colonies were always begging, downright pleading with Spain for them to ship them coins for local use. But Spain would never, ever send enough, so they had to mint them themselves. There's an interesting anecdote that goes along with the earliest days of the first Spanish colonial mint in Mexico. When the Spanish first arrived, the local Indians tried to give them copper because the locals highly valued copper, it was their most commonly used metal. But the Spanish didn't want copper, they wanted gold and silver, which the locals used but didn't value it as much as they did the copper. So, once the colony was up and running, the local mint began issuing copper coins for use in local commerce for their own soldiers and the local population. But the locals remembered that the Spanish never wanted the copper, so the locals were always reluctant to accept and use the copper coins for commerce. They only wanted to use the gold and silver which is what the Spanish placed the most value on ! They saw the copper as being inferior just like the Spanish did in the beginning.
