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(1801) Nevis Countermark. Vlack 407. Rarity-7.

Currency:CAD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:135.00 CAD Estimated At:350.00 - 400.00 CAD
(1801) Nevis Countermark. Vlack 407.  Rarity-7.

Buyer’s Premiums will be added on all items as per the Terms & Conditions of the sale. Invoices will be emailed out after The Toronto Coin Expo.

(1801) Nevis Countermark. Vlack 407. Rarity-7. Very Fine or so, a 1782 Cayenne Two Sous as a host, the obverse countermarked NEVIS with a prepared oblong punch (the Vlack plate coin is also of this date and the countermark also on the obverse). Medium mottled brown, the surfaces lightly rough but without any serious damage from circulation. An interesting piece, Nevis was actually not a French colony, but rather a British one at the time (it is now joined with the island of St. Kitts as a single country); during this period the island was an integral part of the slave trade both as a strategic stopping point for ships plying the trade, as well as for using slave labor at home to cultivate the extremely profitable sugar crops. Even though it was a British colony, they seldom had coinage sent to them and instead countermarked worn silver or billon coins of whatever type they could find (Vlack notes four different host types), but they did not resort to cutting Spanish silver coins into smaller circulating units as other islands did. Extremely rare, the Vlack collection contained just a single example, and few have ever appeared for sale elsewhere.