1811 9 Livres

A dramatic relic of Caribbean colonial finance: a Guadeloupe 9 Livres of the British occupation, created by countermarking and holing a Spanish colonial eight reales. The host is a 1807 Mo TH Mexico City eight reales of Carlos IV (the armored bust of "CAROLUS IIII"), now encapsulated by NGC at VF-30 under catalog number KM-25.

Guadeloupe had been French since 1635, but during the Napoleonic Wars the island fell under British control from 1810 to 1816. Cut off from a reliable supply of coin, the British administration turned to the silver already in circulation. By a proclamation of 9 May 1811 it authorized the conversion of Spanish dollars into local money: a square central plug was cut from each dollar with distinctive crenellated, serrated edges, and small raised crowned "G" countermarks were struck onto both faces of the surrounding ring.

The clever part was that one coin became two. The pierced outer ring circulated at 9 Livres, while the diamond-shaped center that had been punched out - stamped with a radiant "G" - passed separately as a 20 Sous (1 Shilling) piece. The original authorization called for cutting and stamping some 10,000 Spanish dollars, with the removed centers representing about one-ninth of the total weight.

When Guadeloupe was returned to French rule in 1816, the new administration moved to withdraw the British occupation money; the cut center pieces were demonetized in May 1817. Remarkably, some of the holed host dollars stubbornly continued to circulate as late as 1858 before they were finally retired. This example shows the bold lozenge cut, the crowned "G" stamps, and handsome retained detail on the Mexican undertype - a textbook, problem-free representative of one of the most visually striking countermarked types in world numismatics.