World of Coins

Other tokens and medals => Advertising, propaganda and numismatic artefacts => Private countermarks => Topic started by: MORGENSTERNN on December 25, 2016, 11:14:28 PM

Title: Japanese occupation counterstamp on malaya coins
Post by: MORGENSTERNN on December 25, 2016, 11:14:28 PM

Hello,
From time to time you can find some coins from Malaya with "japanese counterstamp"
Sellers claim they were stamped during japanese occupation of Malaya - WWII
What is your opinion about those issues ?
Are they real "pieces of history" of modern concoctions ?
See below two coins with this kind of marks : 1 cent 1940 (detail) & 10 cents 1941

Title: Re: Japanese occupation counterstamp on malaya coins
Post by: andyg on December 26, 2016, 12:33:08 AM

this is quite fun...
look at the build up of the green around the ear on the first coin - it built up before it had a countermark applied ~ suggesting that the countermark was applied much later.

Title: Re: Japanese occupation counterstamp on malaya coins
Post by: Figleaf on December 26, 2016, 07:46:47 AM

FWIW, the characters on the cent are 大日本 (dai nihon), which may be short for 大日本帝國 (dai nihon teikoku - empire of great Japan, the official name of Japan until August 1945) or, perhaps more likely, may be a copy of the name of the country as it appears on post-war Japanese coins.

Personally, I have little faith in recent "discoveries" of 75 year old counterstamps, especially from a country known for making up "rarities".

Peter