Due to the crisis of silver in the trade, caused by the French Revolution, from March 1797 the Bank of England began issuing Spanish dollar stocks to the market, on which oval countermarks with the image of George III were struck, indicating the value of the coin - 4 shillings and 9 pence. This procedure, did not solve the problem, which was a shortage of fine coinage, and was flawed by the ease of copying the countermark described above. A further treatment was the introduction of more complicated octagonal countermarks, used from January, to May 1804, but these too began to be counterfeited. The final solution, was to have the Soho mint completely counterfeit the Spanish octagonal countermarks, into English dollars / 5 shillings.
Silver, diameter 41.5 mm, weight 26.7 g.
