Bank of England Counterstamps

[Deeman]

Introduction

After a series of invasion attempts by French naval forces around the end of the 18th century, the British people became concerned about the threat of war from Napoleon and the Bank of England's reserves suffered from extraordinary withdrawals as people chose to store their wealth themselves. Following a Privy Council meeting, this resulted in the issuance of an order to the Bank to cease making cash payments until Parliament could decide a further course of action.

[Deeman]

Oval counterstamp

The first course of action to meet the population's demand for silver coins was to instruct staff at the Tower Mint to counterstamp Spanish dollars supplied by the Bank of England with a small oval right-facing bust of George III. This was done over a period of 237 days from 9 Mar to 31 Oct 1797. The vast bulk of the silver coin held by the Bank of England was made up of Spanish and Spanish colonial silver eight réales (commonly known as dollars) which had circulated throughout the economy quite freely for some years. The Spanish dollars were lighter and contained a lower fineness of silver than the earlier British crowns. Nearly 3 million newly counterstamped Bank of England dollars had a stable value of 4/9, whereas Spanish dollars that did not have a counterstamp continued to fluctuate in value.

The value of Spanish dollars on the London bullion market fell to 4/6 in Jun 1797, which meant that if a counterfeit punch could be used on a genuine dollar, it would yield an immediate profit of about a 5%. When silver prices dropped further that summer, the counterfeiter's profit rose to be closer to 10%. With the size of the counterstamp being rather small, it was easy for the counterfeiters to fool the general public. The prevalence of counterfeit dollars was such that the Bank of England decided to recall the dollars from circulation from late September of that year. Whether genuine or counterfeit, the Bank chose to accept all Spanish dollars at 4/9.

The oval countermark design was that employed for the obligatory hallmarking of silver since 1786 to indicate that a duty of 6d per ounce on silver plate had been imposed. The tax was introduced in 1784 and for the first two years a left-facing bust of George III within a small octagonal was applied.

[Deeman]

Dollars with oval counterstamp



Bank of England dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on reverse of 1772 Carlos III 8 réales, Peru Lima mint, assayer JM.





Bank of England dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on 1778 Carlos III 8 réales, Peru Lima mint, assayer MJ.





Bank of England dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on 1790 Carlos IV 8 réales, Peru Lima mint, assayer IJ.





Bank of England dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on 1793 Carlos IIII 8 réales, Mexico City mint, assayer FM.





Bank of England dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on 1794 Carlos IIII 8 réales, Chile Santiago mint, assayer DA.





Bank of England dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on 1795 Carlos IIII 8 réales, Bolivia Potosi mint, assayer PP.





Bank of England George III oval counterstamp.

[Deeman]

Fractional dollars with oval counterstamp



Bank of England half-dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp on 1796 Carlos IIII 4 réales, Madrid mint, assayer MF.





Bank of England quarter-dollar 1797, George III oval counterstamp over Montserrat counterstamp on 1774 Carlos III 2 réales, Mexico City mint, assayer FM.





Montserrat counterstamp - cross, crescent & star design.

[Deeman]

Octagonal counterstamp

After Napoleon shattered the fragile Treaty of Amiens in May 1803, the renewal of war brought on the usual rising prices and hoarding of what silver coin remained in circulation. On 2 Jan 1804, the Treasury issued a warrant to Royal Mint officials to counterstamp dollars with a larger octagonal head of George III adapted from the Maundy penny design. The supply of available Spanish dollars was no longer as plentiful as it had been in 1797. The counterstamping was done over a period of 144 days to 2 Jun 1804. These dollars now had a stable value of 5/-. This didn't stop the counterfeiters and the second round of counterfeiting was such that plans for an amended stamping process for silver dollars was being actively discussed within a few short months.

[Deeman]

Dollars with octagonal counterstamp



Bank of England dollar 1804, George III octagonal counterstamp on 1787 Carlos III 8 réales, Mexico City mint, assayer FM.





Bank of England dollar 1804, George III octagonal counterstamp on 1799 Liberty dollar.





Bank of England dollar 1804, George III octagonal counterstamp on 1802 Carlos IIII 8 réales, Peru Lima mint, assayer IJ.





Bank of England George III octagonal counterstamp.

[Deeman]

Bank of England dollar

A new strategy was adopted that ran from 12 May 1804 to 20 Mar 1817. Using Boulton's Soho Manufactory, dollars were overstamped with George III's head and an Inscription 'Georgius III. Dei Gratia Rex' on the obverse, and Britannia with the words 'Five Shillings Dollar Bank of England, 1804' on the reverse. This overstamping completely obliterated all trace of the original Spanish emblems. These dollars were struck right through to 1811 and were not recalled from circulation until late 1816.

[brandm24]

A wonderful write up on these interesting issues, Deeman. I wasn't aware that there were George III stamps applied to US currency. I'll have to look into them and see if I can find more information.

Bruce

[brandm24]

While estimated that about four million dollar sized coins were sent to the Bank of England for stamping only about 400,000 had the octagonal stamp applied to them.

Only five or six US Bust Dollars are known to exist today with the octagonal stamp. All are dated 1799. One example is in the British Museum and a second at the Bank of England. The other three or four are, apparently, in private collections. The last specimen was auctioned in 2008.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

The counterstamped coins are usually described as failures for being too easy to counterfeit. That is quite true for the oval stamps, that undervalued Spanish silver. However, it doesn't explain why the coins with octagonal counterstamps were also counterfeited, as they overvalued the pesos.

I think that it is far more likely that the octagonals were replaced by the BoE overstrikes because of two other reasons. One was the technology used by Boulton could actually do the overstriking at reasonable speed and cost. The other was that until 1807, the British armies were on the losing side (the navy was doing better). From 1807, the Peninsular war turned the tide and had the immediate effect of making the later Ferdinand VII an uneasy ally - uneasy because Ferdinand, as a catholic had always been an enemy of protestants. In these circumstances, Wellington could claim the king's silver and gold as war booty, which he did with gusto, using them to pay his soldiers and their supplies, sending the rest to London. As a result, the BoE, whose stock was virtually depleted by the two counterstamped emissions, was flooded with Spanish silver.

As for those US dollars: de jure, the US was an enemy state for Britain, aligned with France. De facto, passing American ships would be more inclined to help out the English, rather than French military, presumably because many early Americans were of British descent. That wouldn't stop British navy captains from capturing American ships, though, as they received prize money from such actions.

Peter

[brandm24]

Since so few American coins are known to have been stamped, someone opined that they may have supplied by a trader with US ties. Since all existing examples are dated 1799 it's a possibility.

Bruce