41/2 Bits Counterstamp on Peru 2 Reales KM# 95

Saint Vincent's fiscal administrators, facing a chronic shortage of small change common across the British Caribbean in the early nineteenth century, authorized counterstamping foreign silver to create locally sanctioned currency. The host coin — a Peruvian 2 Reales — was an opportunistic choice rather than a deliberate one, reflecting whatever Spanish colonial silver happened to be circulating in sufficient volume. The 4½ Bits denomination was peculiar to the Eastern Caribbean monetary system, where the Spanish real was locally reckoned as a "bit" at a fixed exchange rate against sterling.