Even when paid, the interest payment was late (Spain defaulted on its loans several times). In 1564, Spain paid 300,000 ducats representing interest in arrears. The sum was paid in silver thalers and half-thalers minted in Naples and Sicily. At the time, Poland–Lithuania was engulfed in the Livonian and Northern Seven Years' Wars and was short on cash. To save time and money, the received coins were not melted and re-minted. Instead, they were counterstamped with a monogram of Sigismund Augustus and the year (1564) in Vilnius Mint. These coins were mandatorily exchanged for 60 Polish groszes when in reality the coins were worth only about 33.5 groszes. The King promised to redeem the coins at the end of the war at the same rate of 60 groszes (thus, in effect, providing a wartime loan to the state). It is unknown if the promise was kept. These countersigned coins are numismatic rarity in Poland and Lithuania.