Rather anomalous coin from the 1739 Rooswijk shipwreck

realeswatcher

... as it's a Mexico 4 Reales dating from the 1610s!!

This is the umpteenth time I've seen this from this guy over the past 10+ years. He sells plenty of properly pedigreed material... just not always. Years back, when I watched these things more carefully, he'd buy raw (no papers) cobs on eBay and then resell them along with his own COA for his best guess at a wreck that era coin could plausibly have come from. Of course, the coin then brings an accordingly higher price (often much higher). In this instance (not nearly the first time), the wreck/coin match isn't close.

Sad thing is that he was actually a legit player in the game - a main salvor of the Association and Hollandia wrecks off Cornwall in the late 60s-early 70s. That cachet obviously helps the operation succeed.

The lesson, as with any subsection of numismatics... know your material. Of course, it's easier to pull shenanigans like this with shipwreck material as the buyers are often less "coin people" than history/wreck/Pirates of the Caribbean buffs.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394507219914

SimonW

That’s pretty gutsy. It doesn’t have any indication that it even COULD have come from the Rooswijk. Noted. Will avoid in the future.