1792 8R Mexico C-Stamp

I just sent him an email.

First I want to say Thank-you, Bobby for directing my attention to this post. I just got back from a 10 day trip back to New England and for the entire time I had no access to a computer. I did get some nice counterfeits but that is a different story.

Hello Shannon,

What you appear to have there is a period counterfeit referred to by specialists as a part of the Birmingham Emission (Birmingham for short). I will explain the type first and then the reasons for my uncertainty as to the precise age of this particular coin.

The Birmingham series of forgeries was begun about 1796. They were made for the most part (as implied by the name) in Birmingham, England. They were manufactured using Sheffield Silver plate and were produced initially with the support of (or at least no opposition from) the English Government. They were intended to be sent overseas to the orient (mostly China) to destabilize the Spanish Economy. England and Spain were at war in 1796 and this was part of the "War effort" so to speak.

As a tactic it failed. The Chinese merchants caught on quickly and used chop punches to disclose the fraud. The Spanish Government produced a list of the dates and mint marks of the coins discovered and the "jig was up". The list of dates and mints involved is found in Cayon's (I am not positive of this name without checking) book on Spanish Forgeries.

Even though the effort initially failed - the forgers didn't stop. They kept the dies and continued to make coins sporadically. They actually passed better in the British Colonies so an "underground" operation began that continued for many years (at least through 1820 or so). These counterfeits were dumped into Canada and some found their way to the US. They did circulate for long periods of time - even after the silver layer wore off exposing the core. I am of the opinion that they circulated as a token coinage even though the fraud was obvious. I place them in a category quite similar to the Blacksmith Shop coins.

As an aside, I should explain that Sheffield silver plate is a process dating back to the 1770s where a metal sandwich composed of two thin silver layers were pressed onto a core layer of copper, brass or nickel. It was developed to produce inexpensive silver flatware and bowls, but the forgers quickly took note. It had the advantage of being able to use layers of 0.900 fine silver on the outside so that the color of the forgery was correct. Even if silver electroplating was available (it was not until the 1840s by the way), it would be the wrong color. Most applications of surface silver are the wrong color. Coin silver (anything in the 0.800 to 0.925 range) has a distinctive color that is different from pure silver. So a Sheffield Plate copy could be made with the correct assay silver on the outside.

Back to your coin.

When the English Monetary Crisis of 1803-1804 was at it's height. The forgers started applying the Bank of England Counter-stamps to their forgeries to pass them at home. This is what finally caused the British Government to act. What you have is an example of the second Bank Counter-stamp the Octagonal puncheon. Initially the Spanish 8Rs were stamped with a small oval punch (too easily copied) so a bigger Octagonal punch was made. That also failed and the BoE started re-coining the 8Rs entirely with the famous 1804 Bank design.

As another aside. The punch showing George III was always applied to the neck of Charles IIII of Spain which gave rise to the limerick - "The Bank, in order to make it's money pass, stamped the head of a fool on the neck of a butt."

Anyway, back again.

The copies of this type that can be die matched to the original Birmingham series of forgeries are VERY valuable to specialists like myself. I would gladly pay $300 for such an example because they are Exceptionally rare. However, modern forgers have begun to notice the increase in interest and price of the Birmingham's so in the past year or so some modern forgeries (closely resembling Birmingham's) have entered the market. These Modern fakes are far less valuable (say $30-50) but are still collectible. Their value rests largely on the information they impart about which die types are being copied and what the "new" dies look like. High grade copies are needed to identify die features.

The third class are the period forged host coins (after the Birmingham issue but made before 1820) which were stamped in England. These counterfeits still fall in the $100 or higher range depending upon the material used and the results of XRF testing which can identify trace contaminants associated with individual forgers.

Which category your coin falls into is what I can not be 100% certain of. I am leaning towards an older issue, but some of the die work looks just a bit strange - especially on the shield details.

I will go through my files and answer again - whether or not I can find a match.

However, in the meantime I have some questions which might shed light on the issue of age.

1. How much does the coin weigh in grams (to the 1/10 or 1/100th)?
2. Does the edge have the proper colonial design?
3. How many overlaps are there in the edge design?
4. What is the specific gravity of the coin?
5. What is the diameter of the coin?

But I only wanted to know if it was real or not.

Well, feed me garlic and call me stinky, if that isn't the most comprehensive response I could ever hope for!

Thank you Swamperbob for the detailed explanation with the many sidebars included. Fascinating stuff!

I'm working on attaining the answers to your questions and hopefully should have something for you later today regarding questions 1 and 5.

Question 1: 40grams although I am re-weighing on finer scales
Question 2: I am not familiar with the colonial edge design, however the edge design is circle,sqaure,circle,square linked together.
Question 3: There are no overlaps on the edge design, although I'm not sure if I'm analysing the edge correctly. Should there be obvious signs of overlap?
Question 4: I haven't yet figured out a safe way to immerse the coin into water to perform this test.
Question 5: 13.2cm

Look forward to hearing anything further that you may have found out.

Shannon - The correct weight of an 8R is 27 grams. There is a very narrow range 26.5 to about 27.1 that is normal. At about 26.2 grams an 8R was worn beyond recognition.

The correct diameter is about 37 to 38 mm. A coin as large as 40mm was encountered in some period but was normally considered suspect. The smallest issues tend to be those of Durango which can be 35mm quite often.

Pure water will not harm the coin, but SG is really not needed at this time because I was able to type match the host coin. It is one of the later English issues dating to the latter part of the "Emergency" (when the cruder copies were the norm).

I located a copy with the oval CS and another with no punch at all. All three are thin plated copies which also points to a later issue date.

The pictures I have are too large to upload but they are the same.

I was just browsing and I also thought the legends were all wrong till I found Heritage sold the same one for 1,150 in 2006.

Here is the RIGHT shape 9


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Here are TWO INCORRECT 9s including one that is so worn out that half the underlayer shows. These are the same host coins.



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