8 Reales Type I Countermark

In the early 1840s, Costa Rica lacked both the infrastructure and bullion supply to strike coinage from scratch, so the newly independent state resorted to countermarking Spanish colonial 8 reales — primarily Guatemalan issues — to assert monetary authority and validate their circulation. The Type I countermark on KM#8 uses a small, crude hand-punched device applied at San José under conditions that produced notoriously inconsistent strikes.

Forgeries of the countermark itself were a documented problem almost immediately, prompting Costa Rica to introduce the Type II countermark not long after.