18 Stuivers Countermark C17 + C18

Sint Maarten's chronic coin shortage in the late eighteenth century was not unique in the Caribbean, but the island's solution was characteristically pragmatic: foreign silver already in circulation was countermarked and given a local valuation rather than waiting on metropolitan supply. The 1797 countermarking program applied two stamps — one for each century of mark, hence the C17 and C18 designation — to coins already bearing an earlier countermark, meaning many specimens carry the accumulated bureaucratic history of two separate revaluations on a single host coin.

The host coin varies, which complicates attribution. KM#11.1 specifically covers the double-countermarked variety on Spanish colonial eight-reales hosts, though pieces on other hosts are documented under related CNO numbers.