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2 Reales Type V Counterstamp

Issuer Costa Rica
Year 1846
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Value 2 Reales
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Obverse script Latin
Obverse lettering REPUB. DE CENT. DE AMER. 1846
(Translation: Central American Republic 1846)
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Additional information

Costa Rica lacked a functioning mint for most of the early republican period, relying instead on countermarked foreign silver — primarily Guatemalan and Mexican colonial milled coinage — to authenticate currency for domestic circulation. The Type V horse counterstamp was applied by official order to validate these pieces as legal tender, a practice that continued across several distinct counterstamp types as successive governments tried to assert control over a chaotic monetary supply.

KM#67 specifically identifies the host coin as a 2 Reales, but the counterstamp itself is what the Costa Rican state was issuing — the underlying coin's origin is almost incidental to the transaction.