Cannot find any info on 1901 $2.50 gold piece

Summary:

gold 1901 $2.50 coin leftfacing libert head, left facing quarter eagle with letter E, to the right of eagle head

Cannot find any info on 1901 $2.50 gold piece

Diane Silverman Black (guest) 23 Oct 2010 17:15

Hello: I have my dad's 1901 $2.50 left facing liberty head gold coin with quarter eagle facing left, but the letter E is to the rightside of eagle head. Anybody have any knowledge on this coin? I cannot find anything online,

Re: Cannot find any info on 1901 $2.50 gold piece

Ken Kash 23 Oct 2010 17:27

Sounds like a counter stamp that someone added after the coin was minted but without a pic its hard to tell

Diane Silverman Black (guest) 23 Oct 2010 17:32

What is a counter stamp? I am not coin savy? I can take a picture and send?

Ken Kash 23 Oct 2010 18:35

It's a metal punch that someone taps with a hammer onto the surface of a coin. Why people did this was for various reasons, sometimes political and other times personal.

In China for example, they would receive U.S. Silver trade dollars and to denote their authenticity a Chinese merchant would counter stamp the coin with a Chinese symbol or letter. Note this was also referred to as a "chop mark".