1791 8 Reale - Peru - Counterstamped

from my understanding, there was a shortage of imperial coinage in England so 8 reales captured by them were counter-stamped with king George III's image to make them legal tender as British crowns.

i could be wrong though, I specialize in Canadian coins and only have a bit of knowledge on other country's coins.

i will send a link to swamperbob, he is THE guy when it comes to this stuff.

TogyJ In general what you have heard is correct. These coins were emergency issues of the Bank of England.

The stamp applied to the 8 Reales was a method used by England to re-value the coin above the melt value of the silver content. This was necessary because silver was being hoarded due to a wartime shortage.

In England coinage had been in short supply for many years and clipped "underweight" and worn coinage was all that was generally available for commerce. New coins when minted by the government were immediately hoarded for their silver content. So when England declared war on Spain in 1796 (when Spain concluded a treaty with Napoleon), it made the pre-existing shortage much worse. Merchants had already resorted to making their own penny and half penny coins of copper during the 1790s before the war.

The expedient of stamping the small oval on Spanish Dollars did not work well because the stamp was too easily copied. In addition the stamp used to mark coins was a Tax stamp that was already in existence so unscrupulous individuals could apply the stamp themselves and reap the added value of the coins they stamped.

The stamp was called to a Privy stamp, it was used to mark all sterling silver used in England for various commercial purposes. The Tax stamps were applied to spoons, dishes and all sterling articles to indicate the taxes had been paid. This tax stamp was even forged for debased silverware. So the first emergency issue was short lived before it was withdrawn. Theoretically it should be the scarcest of the types but in reality it is readily available.

A second issue using a larger octagonal stamp was only slightly more successful. It was not until 1804 that Matthew Boulton created the most successful emergency dollar coin by fully restriking 8Rs with full sized dies.

All of these issues were token coins because their value set by law was higher than their metal content. After Boulton's success with his 1804 dollar the Bank issued other tokens in several denominations. These remained in the monetary supply until about 1820. Numerous counterfeits of all of the various tokens are available and make a nice type collection.

The stamp applied to this coin is the correct form. The best way to know what the correct stamp looks like is to view a large number of privy stamped pieces of silver from the reign of George III. I bought a nice serving spoon for under $50 to confirm the appearance of the stamp for 1796/7. You do not need to do that (unless you are a stickler for details like I am) because the picture posted by Lucky Cuss is correct.

The tax stamp was used officially until 1820 to mark silverware (the end of the reign of George III). The stamps were also available for decades afterward. The result was that many coins were stamped after the official issues ended. That is the usual reason given for why so many of the oval examples still exist. It is impossible to determine if the stamp was officially applied or not unless the coin itself is of the wrong date or is itself a forgery.

The 1791 coin from Lima appears to be genuine and it is of appropriate age. I would reserve final judgement until the edge has been reviewed and the physical weight and density have been verified, but I see nothing wrong in the photographs. The coin appears to have some surface corrosion present so the stamp need to be examined to verify that the same corrosion is present.

The coin appears to have been cleaned but even so it should be worth more than $ 150.

So I won the coin, very happy with it. Had to pay more than I expected (hopefully by advertising it on here I didn't end up paying more because of that.)

I've took some images of the edge of the coin as you asked.

What do you think of the grade?

The coin weighs 27.3 grams on my scales, but they only go to one decimal place. The auction description was 27.17 grams so I trust that judgement better.

EDIT: My edge photos are not the best so I will take some better ones tomorrow.

I agree with the above, I believe this coin to be a contemporary counterfeit. Hopefully swamper will swing by for assurance