Chop Or Counterstamp?

A chop-mark I believe is usually on a US Trade dollar.

From these small pictures I believe this is just graffiti, it does not appear consistent with Orient chop marks and also not a readable countermark. Of course higher resolution pictures may dictate otherwise.

Well definitely struck in and not carved, so I take back the graffiti theory. Interesting piece, "cargo hook"? Quite mysterious.

Hello,

i can not relate this thing to nothing I have ever seen.

I do not think, that this is anything official.

Regards

Can I ask what is the ANS/GNL book?

A book dealing with Portrait CC8Rs, Chinese fakes, countermarks/counterstamps and a multitude of other subjects on these Portrait 8R's - including the significance of chinese chopmarks on 8R's ... early 2015 ... American Numismatic Society ... if you own an 8R ... you will want to review the Table of Contents ... notice ... I did not say buy this book ... <BG>.

The mark in question would be filed as a private countermark of unknown origin. As a stand-alone mark, it cannot be considered a chop mark as it is neither an asian symbol / name nor one of the other marks usually seen on chopmarked coins (such as the swastika symbol or arabic, i.e. "western" numbers, for example)

Of course, the border between "countermark" and "chop mark" is rather fluent, as, technically, all chop marks are countermarks.

That is, if you do not follow the definition of "counterstamp" given above, which is rather insufficient, to put it mildly.

When I specialized in West Indies Cut and Counterstamp pieces - it was a MUST HAVE reference. Sold with my library in 2008 as was my collection to Stacks/Bowers. I would suspect that when you see a mark not immediately found in a standard reference like this Snyder post example - Gibbs would be your go to reference - yes alot of the pieces were fakes - yes he had alot of miscellaneous marks in the Plates - maybe like this one - but it at least it gave you a good indicator if there was a plate match to an odd-ball mark and a starting point in terms of its authenticity and MEANING.
It interesting how Mexican Numismatists calls the War of Indpendence validation marks counterstamps - if you come from a U.S. Federal collecting background counterstamps were "merchant" marks like in the Brunk listing. But since the pieces are being VALIDATED for use say by a Royalist clan ... countermark does not fit as you are not assigning a SET monetary value to them or CHANGING the value - hence the term countermark ... and Max Keech of MCC with Dunnigan introduces the new term MINT STAMP at the recent MNA COnference on this series as a stamp as part of the final production process for these WOI counterstamp issues like the Chihuahua's. So we have Mint Stamp and counterstamp - mind you - very logical and proper.
As Dos Mundos alludes to it can be a bit confusing if you did enter this series straight from collecting rainbow toned Morgan dollars in PCGS holders <VVBG>.
This Snyder mark could be a form of a validation stamp of some sort or Hacienda Mark - check Groves? Dos Mundos? Groves? I had a collection of 250 Haciendas - can't recall this one ... yep ... another 2008 dump ... one more time <VVBG>.

John Lorenzo
United States

NO OPINION from my corner - but check Grove as it may be listed in this book or a similar looking mark may link it to a Hacienda source ... does not register with me as to the West Indies ...