These are the last of my pickups from the Whitman Baltimore show last Friday. I bought these two counterstamps from Steve Hayden and have already started to research them since they're both unattributed at this time. The first one is hard to figure because of the seemingly unrelated stamps. On the reverse you can see the "U.S." stamp, but right above it appears to be the remnants of a federal style eagle stamp. If you look closely you can see what's left of the olive branch on the left and the arrows on the right side, plus vague outlines of the eagle's wings. These two stamps together appear to be a federal armory stamp such as those applied to weapons manufactured at either Springfield, MA or Harper's Ferry, VA (the only two armories in the U.S. when this piece was issued sometime after 1811). It more resembles those I've seen from Harper's Ferry, but because of the extreme wear on the coin it's very hard to tell for sure. The date stamped on the obverse, 1811, may refer to a model year but in this case probably indicates the year a patent was issued for a firearm of some type. After researching both the armory and the patent records, I found that a patent was issued to gunmaker John H Hall on May 21, 1811 for a single shot breech loading rifle. It so happens that the weapon was initially manufactured by Hall in small quantities at his gunsmith operation in Maine, but later was done by him at the Harper's Ferry Armory under contract to the government. Hall worked closely with a Connecticut gunmaker named Simeon North who was from Middletown, CT., so perhaps he applied the "Middletown" stamp along with the Harper's Ferry stamp (if that's what it is). Unfortunately, I can't come up with an explanation for why two "Philada" stamps were applied to the coin. Since the size is smaller than the others, it may have been applied at a later time by a different person. All this is just speculation on my part, but it at least makes some sense. When I questioned Steve Hayden about the counterstamps, he told me that the notations on the 2x2 holder were put there by Steve Tannenbaum. He had written in red marker "armory" which is what had originally made me decide to investigate this as an armory stamp. In any case, it's fun to speculate on these things, but I still have a lot of work to do on this one. The Steel / Clark / 1830 counterstamp is unattributed and will probably stay that way. With two common surnames like Steel and Clark there's very little chance of finding the issuer of this piece. The 1830 date may help somewhat, but it probably won't be enough. If anyone has any ideas that will help me in my research please chime in. Thanks for looking everybody. Bruce
