Mexican coins used in Canada
Newfoundland
Long before it became a Canadian province in 1949, Newfoundland operated with its own sovereign currency system, initially utilizing the Newfoundland Pound before switching to its own independent, gold-standard decimal Newfoundland Dollar in 1865. Early military and merchant trade heavily relied on token economies, using items such as the Ordnance Dollars.
Heralded in 1905 as an important numismatic discovery and later demonized as an utter fraud, these Spanish American dollars countermarked GR 5 ORD have known a chequered past. Paul Berry's "The Ordnance Dollars of Newfoundland" by Christopher Faulkner, David Bergeron, Paul Berry, and Markus Molenda, Newfoundland Numismatics: A Collection of Essays identifies the parties responsible for their production, proposes where and when they were distributed, and reveals the dollars' surprising connection to Britain's oldest colony in Canada. It catalogues known examples in their many varieties and using numismatic and non-numismatic references, collection databases, and digital sales records traces their appearance over the last hundred plus years among some of the hobby's most prominent dealers and collectors.
(Stephen Album Rare Coins, Auction 53, 18 September 2025. lot 992)
"GR / 5 / ORD" countermark on an 8r 1770 Mo MF (KM-105). The GR stands for Georgius Rex (King George III of Great Britain); 5 represents the value it was assigned, viz. 5 Shillings, and ORD refers to Ordnance.
Prince Edward Island
Around the end of the 18th century, the Spanish dollar was in constant circulation in Eastern Canada and the United States. The value of the coin varied in different centres but was highest in Halifax. Therefore, whenever the merchants of Prince Edward Island secured them, they sent them to Halifax to take advantage of the higher rate. The resulting shortage of money in Prince Edward Island prompted governor Charles Douglass Smith in 1813 to gather in all the Spanish dollars he could and have their centres punched out, whereupon the central plug and rims were stamped with a sunburst. The punched centres passed as shillings and the outer rims as five-shilling pieces. The combined value of the mutilated coins was thereafter 20 per cent greater in Prince Edward Island than outside the island (and the individual components less valuable), so as a consequence, the coins became the official currency in Prince Edward Island.
Issued by local authority of 24 September 1813.
KM-2 Holey Dollar (5 Shillings), ND (1813) (Stack’s Bowers NYINC auction, 18 January 2020, lot 21014)
Central plug punched through the obverse with nine pointed sun burst countermark applied to obverse at 1 o'clock near rim on a 8r 1783 Mo FF of Charles III (KM-106.2).
KM-2.1 Holey Dollar (5 Shillings), ND (1813) (Stack’s Bowers NYINC auction, 13 January 2023, lot 21354)
Countermark: 10-rayed incuse sun burst applied to 8r 1805 Mo TH of Charles IV (KM- ).
In his outstanding survey of known examples "The Holey Dollars and Dumps of Prince Edward Island", Christopher Faulkner lists only three examples, all in Group C, of earlier dated host coins which all happen to be of Mexico City Mint.