My first spanish colonial 8 reales
pcollector
Posts: 19 ✭✭
Here's the spec.
1822 Zacatecas RG (during war of independence)
Dry Weight: 26.61
Wet weight: 2.57
SG: 10.35
Diameter: 38.6 - 38.9mm
What do you guys think?
For the edges, I couldn't find any clear overlap and the areas which I suspect where it should be has been smoothen out (not sure if it is due to natural wear or man made). Exactly the opposite end of the circumference is also smoothen out.
Other than these two areas. The rest of the edges can see the rectangles and circles clearly.
1
Comments
Always like the character of a well worn piece!
DPOTD
Thanks harasha. Would anyone care to give an opinion on whether this is a genuine or counterfeit coin? There is always a hot debate and discussion on the characteristics for this type of coin and I would love to be part of it.
I'm a seasoned collector of mexican 8 reales and as mentioned, this is my first piece of the colonial coin.
It's raising all sorts of flags for me. Edge design spacing, the fact that it's in 2 segments, odd dentils wear pattern, to name a few things off the top of my head. If your measurements are correct, i'd probably file this one under a late circulating bullion restrike, or what Bob Gurney called a Class 2 Counterfeit within 1 or 2% in silver content, but likely without trace contaminants in the alloy that would point to it being from the correct silver stock. Something like that would only be verified with XRF, so most would call that coin authentic based on silver content alone.
8 Reales Madness Collection
@TwoKopeiki
Appreciate if you can elaborate further on the edge design spacing.
Was it the off-center alignment that raised the red flag or others? How about the 2 segments including the dentils wear pattern that you mentioned?
Note that Zacatecas mint during the WOI is one of the provincial authority that started coin minting to cover shortages at the Mo mint and during the early years when it started operation, you could see numbers of irregular portrait designs. With that in mind, edger as compared to the Mo mint, I take it comparably would not be as sophisticated and the fact that they have to churn out enough coins to meet the demand to pay for the royalist war effort means quality would not be the top priority. 1822 would be the final year of the portrait designs and maybe by your logic, quality of the edging would be vastly improved to match of that from Mo mint but I believe variations could still be possible.
Plus there is simply no incentive to come up with a bullion restrike matching the correct silver content of the Ferdinand 8 reales (even though the argument that the price of silver at certain period of time was low). The counterfeiters could have just come up with tons of Carlos (if indeed it was true that the Chinese traders paid premium for it). And again no Chinese character counterstamp can be seen on this coin.
I quote an example, during the late 19th century, by order of Her Majesty the Queen, Straits Settlement (one of British colonies later Malaya) at around Oct 1890, decreed that the Spanish 8 reales would no longer be accepted as a valid instrument of trade in order to support the acceptance of the East India Company British trade dollars. How about the US or French for that matter? I don't think so.
I'm a seasoned Mexican 8 reales caps and rays collector and having studied much of the coin series, I would say there was indeed a lot of variations in terms of the design and edging process. This applies to the Spanish 8 reales. Apart from the Carlos there was simply no incentive whatsoever to come up with a contemporary counterfeit. One could say that it was to fill the gap and premium paid by coin collectors but I based on my observations this only started about few decades ago around the time, when internet and online auction become mainstream.
I'm considering the option to send this out for XRF test to check for gold content even though it is a worn-out piece, just to satisfy my curiosity. And I do note that at multiple times, coins that were assigned the so-called contemporary counterfeit label in CCF thread, would later turned up indeed having gold content.
I think most coin dealers and collectors do not buy into the contemporary counterfeit theory. Reason simple; the keyword is variation.
I hope I do not sound harsh or anything. Have a great day ahead.
The issue with establishing authenticity of a colonial coin from the WOI period from any mint, let alone the provincial mints, is the inherent variability caused by the disruptions in production. It's hard enough to authenticate these coins during stable periods. Please let us know the results of gold content in your coin if you do send it for XRF. We see lots of silver coins here from Mexico but rarely (or never) get solid scientific evidence of authenticity that an XRF would provide.
Thanks for the detailed response. I do think that by 1822 the edging at Zacatecas would have been much better than what is seen in your coin, but yes - there was quite a bit of variability in both 21 and 22 dates for Zacatecas.
Unless I'm reading this wrong, you don't seem to subscribe to the notion of a whole class of full-weight portraits minted after 1822 for Asia trade purposes in either Birmingham or Boston/New Bedford, so I'm not sure what else we can talk about. If you did, however, I would point out that a number of those documented examples were edged with one die applied twice. Something that would show-up as two gaps in edge design directly opposite of each other that someone might have wanted to cover-up. Although if that were the case, you would see the same edging die imperfections repeated on both sides, which i can't see since your image is angled to show the edge in relation to the design and not straight down.
At the end of the day, what you have is an 8 Reales that most dealers and collectors would not think twice about calling genuine.
And I will have a great day, cheers!
8 Reales Madness Collection
@jgenn
Will sure do....though I'm not sure whether it would be worthwhile to pay for a testing fee to get a high-end XRF unit properly calibrated for low level detection for gold less than 1% in order to get an accurate results since this is a worn-out piece.
@TwoKopeiki
Again I do not see the benefits/motivators for the counterfeiters to do so up to the point of using the same die to edge it twice. There is simply nothing to gain from it unless for the Carlos 8 reales where the Chinese traders are paying premium for it.
Concerning the edge prior to buying this coin I actually seen an 8 Reales from Go and Ga mint minted during the WIO period having only 1 overlap. My point is, is there a possibility that the edger is a crude unit not similar to the Mo mint?
Ferd VII portraits also traded at a premium compared to British and US trade coinage. And while you don't see the benefit, there are at least a dozen distinct late-date Zacatecas examples documented by Bob as Boston types.
Both Ga and Go used a castaing machine to edge coins, so you should still see 2 overlaps. Even in the early (1812) flower-and-rectangle edge design of Guadalajara with cast planchets. Having 1 overlap would raise a red flag. It would imply that in the parallel edging process only one of the edge dies had the design, which was not the standard mint practice at the time. Note that I didn't say it will automatically make me believe the coin is a counterfeit. There are very few markers that would do that with a 100% certainty. But it will make the coin less likely to be a regal issue in my mind.
And yes, provisional mints, especially early in the War, operated under extreme conditions until they were able to receive machinery from Mexico City. Variability in weight, alloy quality, die designs and methods of production exist to various degrees based on the mint.
8 Reales Madness Collection
Also, while i dabble in the W4I issues, someone like @ELuis could probably give you a lot more information as a self-proclaimed Aficionado of the series
8 Reales Madness Collection