2 Reales Type VII Countermark

Costa Rica lacked its own mint until 1864, forcing the young republic to rely on countermarked foreign silver to create a functioning currency. The Type VII punch — applied at the Casa de Moneda in San José — was used to authenticate and nationalize Spanish colonial 2 Reales that had circulated throughout Central America, legitimizing coins struck decades earlier in Mexico City, Lima, or Guatemala under entirely different political authority.

The countermarking program was notoriously inconsistent, and multiple punch varieties exist within the Type VII classification alone.