Important British and World Coins including Important Irish Coins from a Private Collection (Part II)

British Guiana, Three Guilders (authorised December 1808), a Mexico, Charles III, 8 Réales, 1788fm, Mexico City, pierced with a hole of 19 crenations, obv. countermarked e. & d 3. gl in beaded oval indent, 21.71g (Prid. 2 [Sale, lot 151]; Scholten 1441; KM. 2). Coin and countermark very fine and toned, very rare (£8,000-10,000)

Provenance:
‘London’ Collection, NASCA Auction (New York), 16-19 July 1979, lot 1351.

The plate coin in R. Friedberg, Coins of the British World, New York, 1962.

By 1808 the circulation of defective gold coin had reached such proportions in Essequibo and Demerara that the lieutenant-governor, Henry William Bentinck (1765-1820), obtained approval from the Court of Policy to withdraw all mutilated gold coins from circulation, ship them back to England and arrange for their sale to the Bank of England, the proceeds going to the minting of special gold and silver colonial currency for the united colonies. In the meantime, Bentinck arranged for whole Spanish dollars to be pierced with a large hole, and to circulate the mutilated coins and the pieces removed from them at three guilders (five shillings or twelve bitts) and three bitts (three-quarters of a guilder or fifteen pence), respectively. The silver coins requested from England, sanctioned by an Order in Council of 12 May 1809 and struck by the Royal Mint later that year, were made legal tender on 3 February 1810, by which time it is presumed that the mutilation of Spanish dollars had ceased