Share your Spanish Colonial Cobs
Achori
Posts: 86 ✭✭✭
Here is one of my new favorite 2 reales Bolivia (Potosi), struck in 1670, full triple date visible. This piece was struck under Charles ii reign. Assayer E (Antonio de Elgueta).
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Comments
That one is spectacular! Looks like I only have this one and I’m not sure where it came from…
I’m not completely sure Scubafuel, but I believe that’s Potosí piece. The p looks a little funky, so I may be wrong, hard to tell. 1764 Potosí (Bolivia) 2 reales. Nice piece, wholesome and attractive, I’d buy it.
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
Thank you! You 2 reales is Very nice, it’s a 1764 Bolivia (Potosi) 2 reales struck under Charles iii reign. While other mints were minting pillars, Bolivia kept doing cobs until 1773. They did pillars from 1767-1770. Bolivia cobs during Ferdinand vi and Charles iii are hard to come nice. 1/2 reales are rare if dated.
Nice Guatemala cob, date, mint, and denomination visible!
Here is another example; this is a 1685 Peru (Lima) 1 real, triple date, Assayer R (Miguel de Rojas Paramo). Ex Virrey Toledo Collection.
Was going to post this in the thread about the recent Heritage Latin American-themed auction, but figured it might be more pertinent here. Link specifically to just the cob lots:
https://coins.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=3184+790+231+4294933674+&Ntk=SI_Titles-Desc&Nty=1&Ntt=cob&limitTo=all&ic5=CatalogHome-ActionArea-Search-071515
A curious thing in this sale was the grouping of early 1600s Potosi plus some peninsular Spain cobs which from their "look" all seemed to be part of a hoard find. Seems like most were PCGS, some NGC... and seemingly kind of a coin flip split between "Environmental Damage", "Saltwater Damage", and straight grade designations.
None seem to have much corrosion or deep pitting as from a shipwreck, plus there were some Spain pieces... so I'm guessing it was an Old World hoard and more likely a land find (Baltics or Mediterranean vicinity would be a couple guesses?). What's interesting is the conservation/patina. They generally have a very even patination in what looks like a bit of a not totally natural color... with some slight granularity. Sort of has the look like they were dark/black toned (but not horn silver, corrosion, etc. - just surface deep), stripped, then perhaps toned back up lighter, perhaps with a slurry of what they stripped off.
Total speculation on my part... but not without precedent (think Reijgersdaal and certain Sao Jose and El Cazador material as examples).
Whatever they did yielded a pretty decent look. Perhaps a bit "flat", but an overall pleasant color that's certainly better than black or stripped to bare silver. One example with (I think) particularly nice eye appeal shown below:
This popped up on eBay last night... a piece to be aware of, they're fairly deceptive (though the low weight is a red flag for this particular specimen - others are full weight)
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/phillip-iii-8-reales-cob-from-potosi.404077/#post-24467848
I agree with you, they did a great job on them. I also believe they were part of a land hoard, I have pieces from land found, when they come dark is near the coast, it all depends on the soil and weather where they are located. I prefer land over shipwreck pieces. Thats a nice looking piece, I saw all of those lots in hand at heritage, very nice looking.