Half penny Montreal - Crawley damage? [решено]

In a bulk set of coins I received this:



It is it: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces956.html
The token is not in very good shape.. What is this engraved on the coin?
I know Crawley is a city.. But there is a meaning or is it vandalism?

Hello Lucazeo,

I have created a thread on countermarks (unfortunately locked).

Yours seems to be attested on another Canadian token, a 1854 Bank of Upper Canada token. I say "seems to be" because I would need to confirm that the trace of a letter on the left could be an "M". Note that both periods are clear, so we have:

M . CRAWLEY .

with the "M" uncertain since outside the coin.

This is a merchant countermark, which was a common (and cheap) way of advertising your business in the mid-19th century. The fact that he two known specimens are on Canadian tokens suggests that it's a Canadian merchant's countermark. Do you have any information how it got to Italy?

By the way, most countermarks are known to one or two specimens. New ones are found every year.

I hope this help.

Thank you very much for the precious information!
I have this token from this deal on Ebay:
https://www.ebay.it/itm/Ca-15-Kg-Munzen-Riesen-Lot-Bunt-Gemischt/333937868559

So it comes from Germany to Italy. I don't know before.