1 Real Type VII Countermark

Costa Rica's government applied these countermarks to circulating Spanish colonial and early republican reales as a way to authenticate foreign silver and extend its usability as legal tender during a period when the country lacked consistent domestic minting capacity. The host coins vary considerably — Guatemalan, Mexican, and Peruvian reales all appear beneath the punch — which makes attribution of the original planchet as interesting as the countermark itself.

KM#72 spans nearly a decade of application, and the striking quality of the countermark punch deteriorated noticeably over that period.