Anyone Have An Idea What The R Stands For? Or Why They Would Do This?

A post Mint private counterstamp, which detracts from the value, unfortunately.

Why?

I'm not sure this applies here, but be aware that there were eras of our history, particularly during the Civil War for purposes here, when precious metal became war materiel. During that era, barter prevailed. Banks, merchants and citizens hoarded coins causing severe coin shortages. Silver completely left the scene. Shortage opened flood gates for counterfeiters to plague merchants and the public alike with base metal fakes.

One solution led merchants to mint their own private store tokens to circulate among them and their customers. Another led the government to issue paper coin replacements (fractional currency).

Yours may be a casualty of one of these crises. Before releasing it to circulate, a merchant might counter punch either his hoarded coin or private token to assure a customer that he will honor it and assure himself that this one is an honorable species.

Kevin

It means "I've got an R punch. What can I test it on?"