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NICARAGUA, Granada, 10 centavos, arms countermark (1870) on a contemporary counterfeit Potosí, Boliv

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / World Coins By Country Start Price:4,000.00 USD Estimated At:5,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
NICARAGUA, Granada, 10 centavos, arms countermark (1870) on a contemporary counterfeit Potosí, Boliv
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NICARAGUA, Granada, 10 centavos, arms countermark (1870) on a contemporary counterfeit Potosí, Bolivia, cob 1 real, Philip V or Louis I, assayer Y, with El Salvador arms countermark (Type V, 1869) on other side, unique. KM-unl (KM-46 for El Salvador host). 3.11 grams. Central America experienced persistent shortages of official coinage in the mid- to late 1800s, causing old Spanish colonial silver cobs to remain in active circulation. Governments periodically legalized these coins by decree and by applying countermarks to confirm their value in local commerce.

In Nicaragua, executive monetary regulations formally recognized and addressed the continued use of irregular silver coinage and diverse foreign and colonial coins and established official values for them within the national accounting system. By a decree on July 1, 1861, public treasury offices were ordered to regulate and record the circulation of silver cobs and pass them for their equivalent values in the new decimal system; but this was not actually implemented until another decree on May 16, 1870, that specifically established an official exchange equivalence in centavos. In the case of cobs (which were well worn by then), this was done via countermarking, as modern milled coins were easily convertible. This circular countermark is in the form of the arms of Nicaragua, with flags around and wreath below a triangular emblem containing a sun-over-volcanoes design.

In El Salvador, comparable reforms took place in the prior year, by decree of April 7, 1869, regulating the cob coinage (mostly in the 1-real denomination) and stabilizing circulation, resulting in the well-known Type V series of countermarks.

The present coin represents the practical outcome of both of these regulations. A Spanish colonial cob 1 real remained in circulation long after its original minting and was successively validated under the monetary systems of two different Central American republics.

Such cross-border circulation with separate governmental validation is extremely rare. The present example is an unrecorded and presumably unique pairing of these two countermarks on the same host cob, Nicaragua (AU details) on the cross side and El Salvador (Fine details) on the pillars side, with just a hint of original cob design remaining, including assayer Y and second digit 7 of date above waves. From XRF testing we know the coin is about 38% silver and 61% copper, yet it looks like good silver, just with light golden toning. It stands to reason that a well-circulated contemporary counterfeit of correct weight and design was not even given a second look before both countermarks were applied. With NGC tag: "not encapsulated - plated".