Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
41/2 Bits Counterstamp on Mexico 2 Reales KM# 86.1
| Issuer | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
|---|---|
| Year | 1814 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 41/2 Bits (0.4) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse presents the classic 'columnario' or Pillars-of-Hercules design: two crowned terrestrial hemispheres at center, flanked by the crowned Pillars of Hercules with flowing banners, all within a beaded inner circle. The circular legend VTRA QUE VNUM encircles the design, expressing the motto 'Both as One,' while the mint mark 'Mo' for Mexico City and the date 1754 appear in the exergual area. The overall composition reflects the standard globo-and-pillars style characteristic of mid-eighteenth-century Spanish colonial coinage. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Saint Vincent's colonial monetary system ran chronically short of small change throughout the Napoleonic Wars, a problem shared across the British Caribbean. The solution, improvised and officially sanctioned, was to counterstamp circulating Spanish colonial coins and assign them new fixed valuations in local currency. The 4½-bit denomination is peculiar to just a handful of Caribbean islands and reflects the awkward arithmetic of converting reales into bits.
The host coin, a Mexican 2 reales of the Ferdinand VII period, was among the most common silver pieces in Atlantic circulation at the time.