Great Britain 1804 Bank of England Dollar 5 Shilling Chinese Chopmark Silver 1H

  

The Bank of England Dollar was the successor to the emergency countermarked coins that were struck in relation to a crisis with the silver coinage at the end of the 18th Century, where the supply of silver in commerce and for the Mint had dwindled due to the Wars in France after the Revolution in 1797. From March 1797 the Bank of England therefore released stocks of its Spanish dollars and halves each with an oval countermark. They did not really alleviate the problem of smaller change and were issued on an off with the oval countermark, until a more complex larger octagonal mark replaced them from January to May 1804, as the oval pieces were being counterfeited. Eventually the octagonal replacements were also copied widely and the ultimate solution was to have the Soho Mint totally overstrike the remaining stocks of Spanish Dollars with the Bank of England design like the piece offered here.