Overweight Cob Real

KSorbo

I just picked up my first Spanish cob. I was attracted to its overall eye appeal and problem free grade, and having an identifiable date also didn’t hurt.

I noticed that it is around a full gram overweight. Is this typical for cobs? Which of the two scenarios is most likely?

1. It was minted as a two real and clipped (not sure if the denomination is stamped as part of the design).
2. It was minted as a one real and came out of the mint overweight.

SimonW

Nice Cob! It could be a typo.

realeswatcher

The denomination "I", rather than "2", is visible on both sides - it's just a large, heavy 1 Real as made. A decent amount over (or under) prescribed weight is occasionally observed with Potosi early pillar coinage, particularly the minors.

Is this typical for cobs?

There is SOOOO much variety in any number of traits over the 200+ years of cob production at the multitude of different mints that sweeping generalizations aren't often possible. That said, I have seen an anomalously large amount of high/low weights in this period at Potosi - enough to say it's moderately atypical for "cobs overall".

Rexford

It’s possible. I once saw a 32 gram Potosi cob 8R.