The Guatemala 8 Reales Hoard Reassembled
PCGS_SocialMedia
Posts: 310 mod
A few years ago, an interesting hoard of 8 Reales came out. It was destined to another lost pedigree, and as you progress in the article, you will understand why.
The hoard of over 400 coins that was excavated somewhere in Central America was moved to Mexico, China, Hong Kong, and the United States all within a few years. It yielded four of the rarest Ferdinand VII Portrait 8 Reales coins, increasing the population of known examples by some 40%. About half of the hoard has now been conserved with the black and corrosion being removed, and the coins dispersed to retail sales. The other half of the hoard is still in China, made up of mostly Mexico and a few Peru Portrait type pieces with only one Pillar type found in the group.
https://www.pcgs.com/news/guatemala-8-reales-hoard-reassembled
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Comments
Nice find. Is there a complete list of the coins found?
8 Reales Madness Collection
Any pics of the conserved coins?
Latin American Collection
I love it when "hoards" turn up. Especially when they contain very rare pieces.
Just a correction, the mint should be Nueva Guatemala, no Granada @PCGS_SocialMedia otherwise great note.
In addition to the "Nueva Granada" faux pau, this should read the bust of "Charles IV", of course. I doubt Jay Turner wrote all of this but his name is on the by-line so he should have done a better job of editing.
Another minor correction ...
The Spanish reestablished Ferdinand VIII as king on August 11, 1808, but he remained imprisoned in France for six years
Should be Ferdinand Vii, not VIII.
Very interesting article.
My Type Set
Hopefully this doesn't ruin the market for nice non-salvage pieces with some slight old toned-over graffiti...
Enlightening article - which goes into a lot more detail about such finds then you normally ever see in print. Any Spanish collector who has trolled eBay carefully over the past few years has likely surmised this hoard's existence. Pieces that I strongly suspect to be from this hoard were also auctioned by two larger Spain auction houses over the past couple years.
Not sure if it's accounted for in the story somewhere between Mr. A and Mr. T, but an 1808NG Ferd proper bust from this hoard slipped by unloved on eBay according to my notes, back in May 2016 (unfortunately, not to me, got sloppy that day).
PS - The "retailer" mentioned is a large national PM seller - they're selling generic pieces of their choice at about $100 a pop. Guess this quashes my slight temptation to wonder if any other Ferd 1808 proper busts might be hidden in there.
***EDIT - Sedwick offered a stripped-to-bare-silver example (not the one shown in the article's pics and not the one from eBay) in his fall 2019 auction, Lot 903. It's the only hoard example I see from a major auction thus far. I'm now trying to remember if another hoard piece didn't appear on eBay, properly attributed... but maybe I'm imagining that??
Interestingly, the last appearance of a non-hoard piece on the normal market was Aureo, Jan. 2018. Only brought 3100 EUR + juice, which is disappointing considering it was far better quality than several pieces that sold fairly well in 2014-15.