POWERHOUSE COUNTERSTAMPS Part 1: 1830 MANILA

1830 MANILA COUNTERSTAMP (Serrated Edges)

Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles
Auction 46 - The Millennia Collection
Auction date: May 26th, 2008
Lot number: 914
Price realized: 36,000 USD
Provenance: Ex Cornelius C. Vermule III Collection. Vermule was curator of ancient art at the Boston Museum of fine Arts. Numismatically, he was also co-author with Norman Jacobs on Japanese Coinage, New York, 1972, one of the standard references on the subject.

As silk, spices and tea flowed out of Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries, silver and gold flowed from the New World (Mexico & the Americas). Spain’s Mints in the Americas were the main sources of coins for the busiest ports in the Far East. Spanish & Americas silver and gold coins fueled local trade.

In the early 1800’s revolutions, though spread simultaneously across Spain’s colonies. After gaining independence, these new countries: Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru remained the sources of silver coins. This caused suitable dyspepsia to the Spanish authorities, in Manila for they believed that acceptance of coins from these fractious rebels implied recognition of their insurgency. And, more alarmingly, it may spark a desire among the Filipinos to be liberated from mother Spain. On October 13, 1828, the Governor General of the Philippines decreed that all crowns imported from the newly established Mexican Republic of the break-away colonies must be overstruck with Coat of Arms of Spain and the legend: “Habilitado por el Rey N.S.D. Fern. VII (Rehabilitated by the King our Lord Don Fernando VII). On the reverse would be stamped “MANILA” and the date.

This counterstamp was used for three years 1828-1830. In 1832, a charge was made to a smaller and simpler die for the MANILA die had proved damaging to the Mint’s coins and machinery (manifested by the poor conditions of Counterstamped MANILA 1828). Spain eventually recognized her former colonies independence, thus counterstamping was halted in the Philippines by edict on March 31, 1837. Of all the Filipino counterstamped coinage, the MANILA series are the rarest, with those dated 1830 being extremely rare, and currently, there is no other reported specimen at the hands of any private collectors in the Philippines.

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