Official "Post A Counterstamp" Thread....

Those are interesting. What are the odds of you to happen to be the one running across them?!
Nice finds.

Aside from the quarter with the V, those are the product of a secretive project called Quarter Notes.

Each message has a meaning related to the state depicted on the quarter (except for the quarantine issue).

Hawaii is obvious, someone answered the SC reference, and the KY counterstamp references a ghost town with a creepy back story.

To find four of these is unusual. Are you in the western part of the US? They seem to show up there most often.

Thank you for the additional information.

Seems like a good assumption.

Here's a countermarked British one-penny token, dated 1812, from Roscoe Place, Sheffield, Yorkshire. The issuer was Shaw, Jobson, & Co., whose many factories are shown behind the wall on the obverse. Among their products were candlesticks, edging tools, fenders, fireplace (and maybe blacksmith's) irons, stove grates, etc. Now known as Withers 1047, Davis built some confusion into his descriptions of the three varieties of this piece, so we'll call it Davis 141-143, for those of you keeping score at home.


I don't collect countermarks, but sometimes they show up unbidden, as they say, and this was one of those sneaky ones. I'd owned this token for probably ten years before I looked closely enough to notice the tiny "S" stamped in above the date.


Trying to determine which way was up for this "S," I created these cropped views:


What the scans don't show is that most of the variation in color is lustre, with mostly an underlying proof-like quality. I mention that only because one of the dealers I respect in this field took a look at it and suggested that it signifies a "specimen," something the diemaker (Thomas Halliday) or striker (allegedly Edward Thomason) might have produced for the issuer to approve or reject before minting was started up in earnest.

So, two questions for forum members: First, have you ever seen a c/s this small? And second, what do you suppose its purpose was?

Thanks to all for looking, and wash your hands, everybody!
Tom

Very nice!

I just won this. It took me a few seconds to recognize its features. It's 8 reales according to seller. You can see Charles's portrait facing right. The date is 17__. The mint mark appears to be Tesoro (Bolivia). There seems to be a really cool countermark on the obverse neck area, and perhaps elsewhere. I got it for way below melt.

An 1898 IHC counter stamped with a United States Navy Anchor. The counter stamp might be in memory of the sinking of The USS Maine in February of that year. It's sinking is credited with being one of the events that brought us into the Spanish-American War... (feel free to read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889). [The wikipedia date of 1889 is a type-o. It is supposed to be 1898.] Was an interesting read.