6 Shillings 8 Pence - George II FERDIND VI D G HISPAN ET IND REX, Guatemala City, countermarked

Jamaica's chronic shortage of small change throughout the mid-eighteenth century forced colonial administrators into improvised solutions. This piece is a Spanish colonial eight-reales — struck at the Guatemala City mint for Ferdinand VI of Spain — that was officially countermarked by Jamaican authorities and given a fixed tariff value of six shillings and eightpence for local circulation. The countermark effectively conscripted foreign silver into British colonial currency without the expense of a dedicated mint.

KM#8.1 distinguishes this Guatemala City host from countermarked examples on Mexican or Lima planchets, which circulate under separate catalog numbers and command different premiums depending on host coin quality.