Ray started collecting coins and stamps in the early 1950s. After collecting over 5,500 world stamps, he quickly realized he hadn't even scratchedthe surface, and traded all his stamps, albums, and catalogs to a couple for their United States coin collection. To this day, he has maintained hisinterest in U.S. type sets, Buffalo nickels, Standing Liberty quarters, Walking Liberty halves and U.S. currency.

His interest in Philippine numismatics began when he was stationed there in 1963, while a newly minted 2nd lieutenant in the United States AirForce. He was fascinated with the history of the Philippines as it moved from Spanish rule through the United States' administration to thePhilippine Republic. He was interested in the governments' varied impact on coins, tokens, medals and currency, including during the JapaneseOccupation and Guerilla/Emergency notes.

All areas of Philippine coinage had collectible interest for Ray, including the trials, patterns, varieties and low mintages that enhance thechallenge of Philippine numismatics. Currently, Ray distributes an annual mail bid covering World War II books and all aspects of Philippinenumismatics. He can be reached at cookiejarpi@verizon.net.

Ray purchased his first Philippine counterstamp in 1964, an 1835 Y.II C/S on an 1754 Mexican 8 Reales coin for $50 (not offered in the sale butpart of his Philippine type set). He knew Pillar coins were very collectible, but with a Philippine counterstamp - wow! That purchase initiated hisresearch into the history of these interesting coins, but little information was available in the Philippines. After returning to the United Statesin 1965, he found articles by Dr. P.I. DeJesus who listed several types of counterstamps.

Ray began to search through dealer lists and at tables at coin shows and slowly added a few pieces to his collection. But it wasn't until the mid-1980s that significant and new information was provided by Frank F. Gilboy, in an article in the June 1984 issue of the Barrilla,official publication of the Philippine Central Bank Money Museum. In the article, Mr. Gilboy explained how to date the individual counterstamps byexamining the number of pearls in sequence in the crown of the counterstamp. From his examination of a number of examples, Mr. Gilboy was able toestimate the percentages of counterstamp strikings of each date.

Ray's experience generally supports Mr. Gilboy's estimates of the relative rarity of the date of the counterstamp. This energized Ray's interestto find the scarcer dated counterstamps, and to start looking for them on rarer country host coins, varieties or overdated host coins, andparticularly to search for higher grade host coins and counterstamps. Some countries such as Peru and Mexico provided many examples, but finding thecoin and the counterstamp in VF to AU was the challenge!

Ray writes:

To read the complete article, see:
TheRay Czahor Collection of Philippines Countermarks (www.stacksbowers.com/NewsMedia/Blogs/TabId/780/ArtMID/
2678/ArticleID/64894/The-Ray-Czahor-Collection-of-Philippines-Countermarks.aspx)