10 Centimos 1878 counter mark

[ChKy 61]

Dear all!

I heard that in the 19th century Britain had a shortage of coinage stil, so people started to import so called French Pennies into your country. The 5 and 10 Centimes pieces circulated in Britain as Half Pennies and Pennies respectively. Besides French coinage the coins of Spain, Italy or Luxembourg were imported as well (so countries directly or indirectly connected to each other by the Latin Monetary Union). After some time companies started to counter strike those coins with advertisements Here I have a 10 Centimos piece from Spain showing A.B.C.o as counter mark. Does anyone have information about, who released that one?

Thanks a lot for your efforts

[Peckris 579]

Dear all!

I heard that in the 19th century Britain had a shortage of coinage stil, so people started to import so called French Pennies into your country. The 5 and 10 Centimes pieces circulated in Britain as Half Pennies and Pennies respectively. Besides French coinage the coins of Spain, Italy or Luxembourg were imported as well (so countries directly or indirectly connected to each other by the Latin Monetary Union). After some time companies started to counter strike those coins with advertisements Here I have a 10 Centimos piece from Spain showing A.B.C.o as counter mark. Does anyone have information about, who released that one?

Thanks a lot for your efforts

Where did you get your information from? The 18thC was the era of chronic shortage of copper coins, but after the sporadic mintages of Geo IIII and William IIII, from Victoria onwards, the mintage of copper, and then bronze, was huge.

Sorry, I don't have any information about the counterstamp

[davidrj 194]

Dear all!

I heard that in the 19th century Britain had a shortage of coinage stil, so people started to import so called French Pennies into your country. The 5 and 10 Centimes pieces circulated in Britain as Half Pennies and Pennies respectively. Besides French coinage the coins of Spain, Italy or Luxembourg were imported as well (so countries directly or indirectly connected to each other by the Latin Monetary Union). After some time companies started to counter strike those coins with advertisements Here I have a 10 Centimos piece from Spain showing A.B.C.o as counter mark. Does anyone have information about, who released that one?

Thanks a lot for your efforts

Where did you get your information from? The 18thC was the era of chronic shortage of copper coins, but after the sporadic mintages of Geo IIII and William IIII, from Victoria onwards, the mintage of copper, and then bronze, was huge.

Sorry, I don't have any information about the counterstamp

A very common coin with a private counterstamp - very little value other than as a curiosity

The only counterstamp of note on these Spanish bronze pieces are the very rare Puerto Rico issues counterstamped with a device similar to a fleur de lis

The punch was intended for use to revalue silver coins, the bronze was counterstamped in error

I've only seen two on Ebay over the years and both went for well above my budget

[ChKy 61]

Where did you get your information from? The 18thC was the era of chronic shortage of copper coins, but after the sporadic mintages of Geo IIII and William IIII, from Victoria onwards, the mintage of copper, and then bronze, was huge.

Sorry, I don't have any information about the counterstamp

I have some citations about that topic:

Scott J.G. (1975). British Countermarks on Copper and Bronze coins. Spink & Son Ltd., London. ISBN 10: 0900696648, ISBN 13: 978-0-90069-664-0

Schulze, W.G. (1978). Gegenstempel auf Münzen Napoleons III (Teil 2). Die Münze, Nr. 4, April 1978, 190-193.

Hoffmann, P.K. (1978). Leserbrief in Die Münze, Nr. 7, Juli 1978, Seite 354 zu: Gegenstempel auf Münzen Napoleons III von Schulze, W.G. Die Münze, Nr. 3/4, März/April 1978.

Meyer, H. (1978). Französische Münzen – in England umgelaufen. Die Münze, Nr. 5, Mai 1978, 250-254.

Most of the literature I found about the topic are written in German. Sorry for that...

[Colin G. 147]

I understand it was more the fact that the sizes/weights had started to align in different countries due to the same blanks being used, and the quality of the coinage was also comparable with many of the countries using the same suppliers (Heaton et al). Therefore people had become confident in accepting the foreign coinage in transactions. It is surprising how many foreign bronze pieces are found when metal detecting, it was obviously a fairly common practise.

[Peckris 579]

I understand it was more the fact that the sizes/weights had started to align in different countries due to the same blanks being used, and the quality of the coinage was also comparable with many of the countries using the same suppliers (Heaton et al). Therefore people had become confident in accepting the foreign coinage in transactions. It is surprising how many foreign bronze pieces are found when metal detecting, it was obviously a fairly common practise.

Yes - the equivalent French bronze piece is almost exactly the size of our bronze penny, if not exactly.

[Debbie 58]

This looks as if it might be of interest..here