1804 WILLIAM LANGMUIR COUNTERMARK SOUGHT

Eric Hodge (writing to PAN):

Pat McBride writes:

Unique Discovery
by Dr. Henry Stouffer

I'm sure that many of you have been delighted to have come across a coin, medal or token that has spurred a great deal of research and investigation. In my 57 years in the hobby, I've been quite fortunate, having found the fifth known “ugly head” Washington medal, as well as several rare large cents.

However, the subject of this story, concerning an eight reale piece dated 1804, had an amazing conclusion. The subject coin came into my hands about a year and a half ago.

The first thing I noticed was heavy counterstamping — not only on the obverse, but also on the reverse. Our friend Charles (Carolus) the 4th was pretty much obliterated on the obverse, with the legend, “Payable by W. Langmuir” and some kind of interior design. But most interesting was a heavy grill-like counterstamp on the reverse, with the legend “Paisley Dollar Society,” with the numeral “50” centered on it. This covered about 60 percent of the reverse.

The Search
Well, what to do next? I knew Q. David Bowers had a great interest in counterstamps, and Jerry Kochel and I had taken part in the first ANA Seminars at Penn State some 20 years ago -- in which David Bowers participated, I took his course on the history of U. S. coins.

Q. David Bowers
So I wrote Dave, giving him all the information about the coin, and enclosed a pencil rubbing of it. In less than a week, I received a reply from Dave in which he told me he had taken the liberty of sending on all my information to Russ Rulau.

Russ Rulau
About two weeks later, a letter arrived from Russ Rulau in which he informed me that the piece was a quite-well-known Scottish token issued on or after 1814 by William Langmuir, a miller and grain dealer of Paisley, Rengrewshire, in an attempt to pass the Spanish Dollar for 5 Shillings 3 Pence. (What I had thought to be a “50” turned out to be “5/3.”), when 4 Shillings 9 Pence was more acceptable in Scotland.

Gregory Brunk
He also noted that a gentleman named Gregory Brunk had done a work (in 2003) in which he reported 16 known specimens in collections in various dates from 1774 to 1814. Then, through Rich Hartog, I wrote Gregory Brunk in Hudson, Iowa. In his reply, he acknowledged that I had an unlisted example of the Langmuir/Paisley Dollar Society countermark. He went on to say that merchants issued countermarked pieces at guaranteed specific values — e.g. 7 Shillings and 6 Pence. So, if the price of silver went below that value, people turned them in. Then, to prevent them from being redeemed twice, the merchant would “cancel” the redeemed coin with a chisel or hammer.

Harrington Manville
Brunk also wrote that the world expert on these is a man named Harrington Manville, who published “Tokens of the Industrial Revolution” (Spink - 2001), which is subtitled, “Foreign Silver Coins Countermarked for use in Great Britain c. 1787 - 1828.” Brunk said further that he had forwarded my letter to Manville.

At the right are photos of coins of this type — the upper ones showing the Langmuir/Paisley Dollar as it was issued, and below, showing it with countermarks.

Now, to the amazing conclusion. I was given a listing of the known dated specimens, and recognizing that the U.S. 1804 Dollar is numismatically famous, it turns out that our specimen is the first known — and only one with the date of 1804. How about that !

To read the complete Clarion issue, see:
The Clarion, vol. 23, no. 1 (https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/512822)

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