Great Britain Countermarked Coinage 1760 to 1820

At first glace the coin in our picture, a beautiful one from respected eBay seller GK-Coins in London, looks like a normal Spanish 8 reales. And so it is, almost ...

The small indented feature at the center of the 'heads' side (really called the obverse side of a coin) is known as a countermark. The Bank of England needed more coins than they had on hand in the late 1700s and early 1800s, so they simply punched their countermarks into readily available Spanish coins. Many of the countermarks use the oval design shown, but there are other shapes also, including circles and rectangles with clipped corners.

Coin shortages are not unusual. On this CoinQuest page you can see a piece of 'emergency money' issued by tradesmen, not by the British government.

As to value, nice examples of British countermarked coins are rare and strongly sought by some collectors. A specimen as nice as GK-Coin's would bring several thousand US dollars in a retail market. More typical catalog values run like this:

4 REALES (1/2 DOLLAR)
worn: $100
average circulated: $250
well preserved: $900

8 REALES (1 DOLLAR)
worn: $175
average circulated: $400
well preserved: $1250

These values are only general guidelines. Specific coins, with specific dates and patterns, can vary widely from the values above. If you have an nice specimen, free of problems like scratches, stains, cleanings, gouges, nicks, and corrosion, it is best to seek out a knowledgable collector or coin dealer for an accurate appraisal.

CoinQuest thanks GK-Coins for use of their coin image. It is a beauty!
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