Favorite Personal Cobs

[capt dom]

Scholarly Hypotheses - well written and concise.

One slight exception. It was called "The Edict of 1650" the king
issued. The problem of the miss-alloying of the coins started in the
1640's and was recognized in the later 1640's. It reached its height in 1650.
Other than aviso vessels, they didn't have fax machines and smoke signals
didn't work well half way around the world - like the "smoke and mirrors"
the government and wall street use today with the internet and media.

The counter srtamping of the 1650 & 1651 coins was just a public way
of attempting to put a cap and lid on the problem.

 

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[divewrecks]

Thanks Dom. To anyone interested in reading more about this may I suggest they refer to the following two books written by my friend Sewall Menzel:

“The Potosi Mint Scandal and Great Transition of 1652”, Enrada Publications, Undated

“Cobs, Pieces of Eight and Treasure Coins”, The American Numismatic Society, 2004

Also highly recommended with regards to this topic is:

“La Capitana”, Ponterio & Associates Auction Catalog #99, 1999

Stan

 

[divewrecks]

I love really wacky shaped Mexican coins and quite a few "interesting" shapes have been found in 1715 fleet recoveries (for examples there are two pages of "bizarre" shapes in Alan Craig's book on silver in the state of Florida collection). In the recent Sedwick treasure auction I purchased this 1715 fleet piece. During 1714 and 1715 the Mexican mints were really cranking up the production volume and an occasional piece such as this got by....

Stan

 

[vacavala]

Thanks Trez and Stan
learn, learn learn
John

 

[capt dom]

Actually...

There was a guy there trimming the coins that had a foot fetish!
During that period, many Mexican cobs actually resemble the
shape of a boot!

When folks ask me about these wacky shapes and ask me why
I usually tell them they didn't have cigarette or slot machines
back then so the coins didn't have to roll anywhere.

During the period of the Jupiter Shipwreck (mid to late 1650's)
there was a Mexican coin trimmer that clipped the coins so they
resembled clay urns.

Then there was the romantic guy who trimmed some of the
some of the Potosi coins to look like hearts, but I forget period.
I am sure one of you can recall the date and the right spelling of
{Cortisones}.

 

[divewrecks]

The indented area of my coin (between the two protrusions) is a cast surface. It was an open hole (a void) in the material when the “strap” was being poured. Notice that there are no linear edges in the indentation. When the strap was being sheared into coin blanks (by eyeball) the cut likely occurred across the center of the void. The distortion of the two appendages is either from the force of shearing or the mint worker manually tearing off a partially sheared coin. Mine and the ones in Craig’s book were not shaped that way by plan; that is just the way they ended up when quality control slipped a bit when the demand on the mint for output was extremely high (like in coining all the 1715 fleet treasure accumulated over the several years that returning shipments to Spain were on hold).

I don’t think the urn shaped coins were by that way by design either. It too was an anomaly of the particular way that the silver was being cast into shapes for coin planchets at that particular time. As far as I know these shapes are not tied to any particular assayer initial.

I certainly am not saying that there weren’t plenty of “creative” shapes made on purpose, but this practice was not prevalent at the Mexico mint. They were most all from Potosi and besides the hearts, quite a variety of animal shaped coins are know to exist.

Dom, can you show us any pictures of coins found this year that the will be shown to the state at division time?

Stan

 

[capt dom]

I will be glad to post the 10 or so we found
so far this year. They all are green and highly
worn specimens probably blasted out of the
holes or deeper yet by earlier excavators.

I have yet to get a definitive number on just how
many specimens the Polly-L recovered so far.
Doug already posted the four coins stuck to the
ballast stone Nice find.

We are by no means done for yet this year.
But as you will see from the photo - its getting a
little wavy this time of year!

 

[capt dom]

The good news is we have window days still
in front of us.

I still have a plan on the drawing boards to try and turn our
project "green" this year... And I don't mean
going out and trying to work in these wave conditions

We plan to go out and pump a BIG hole - bigger than anyone has ever
dug before - move the overburden down stream - then crain away the bolders
under 25 feet or so of sand - then see if the rest of the ship is sitting under
them!

Whether it is or isn't - we are going to find a crap load of coins and artifacts!
The reason is for over 24 years all of us with blowers and prop wash devices
I contend have been pushing the coins along the scatter pattern deeper and deeper around the big
rocks. Hopefully the whole boat is down there...

If it isn't.... Well then its time for me to go do somthin else....

 

[capt dom]

Now,

The photos I am posting are of my key chain.
They are from a 1657 Mexican Eight Reale'
OMP.

One of my daughters thinks the coin looks like a Penguin.


I think they look like a clay pot or an urn with a distinct top and bottom.
I personally have found quite a few of these shapes over the past
24 years at the Jupiter Shipwreck site. We have also found quite a few
almost round Mexican specimens as well.

Whether it is a penguin or a clay pot - I do not think this particular shape
was made in vast numbers - by chance.
But I, by no means always right and or a definitive Mexican cob
specialist.
However, we have seen over 13,000 coins to date come off the Jupiter
Shipwreck from 1652 to 1659 and a good number of them haver a similar
shape to this urn or {penguin} variety.

 

[capt dom]

Here are scans of two interesting potosi
Jupiter Coins specimens:

 

[divewrecks]

Assayer "P" (on your key chain) was an unidentified lieutenant of Sebastian Carrillo Maldonado and worked between 1634-1665. I couldn't find any particular trend in shapes that weren't rounded up rectangular planchets except for one that looked kind of like a can opener. If you had that one your key fob could do double duty...

Thanks for adding to the coin posts. Those are nice. Who does your conservation work?

Do you have any closeups of the clump that you guys found a while back?

Thanks, Stan

 

[capt dom]

We do most of our own conservation work.
The state does some for us as well. Like recently
some canons and an anchor.

Here is a posting of a nice clump.
When we get them like this we call them cow paddies!

 

[Tnmountains]

Wow ! I want more cow paddies. I think when I first joined I tried shooting some pics of some atochs coins I have. You guys amaze me
TnMountains

 

[divewrecks]

Wow ! I want more cow paddies. I think when I first joined I tried shooting some pics of some atochs coins I have. You guys amaze me
TnMountains

Hey Richard, tell me what your looking for and I'll keep an eye out for you. How's the relic and indian artifact hunting going? Any good finds? I got a new Explorer so we'll have to go digging sometime....Stan

 

[Tnmountains]

Wow ! I want more cow paddies. I think when I first joined I tried shooting some pics of some atochs coins I have. You guys amaze me
TnMountains

Hey Richard, tell me what your looking for and I'll keep an eye out for you. How's the relic and indian artifact hunting going? Any good finds? I got a new Explorer so we'll have to go digging sometime....Stan

Stan
We never made it to Rocky Face to CW hunt. I did great on ancient artifacts this year. Found a lot. Listen right after hunting season if you are interested I have some some very cool colonial/Cw sites and you are welcome to come hunt with me. I would like that very much. They are vigin sites and should be very very good. Full permission and access.
I need to shoot those cobbs again now that I have leaned to take better pics.I have another Atocha(3 now) I could add from Fishers original investors.
Richard

 

[divewrecks]

New acquisition. Blundered royal?

Stan

 

[gwdigger]

Some Rooswijk treasure...

 

[gwdigger]

New acquisition. Blundered royal?

Stan

The cross side (cross eyed) looks like a pile of jacks! heh

 

[gwdigger]

We do most of our own conservation work.
The state does some for us as well. Like recently
some canons and an anchor.

Here is a posting of a nice clump.
When we get them like this we call them cow paddies!

Its beautiful AS IS!

 

[divewrecks]

Some Rooswijk treasure...

Very nice digger! I assume that is personal collection material. Did you get some or all of the klippes at the Ponterio auction about three or four years ago? I'll have to pull out some of my catalogs.

As you may now have gathered, the number of 1730R coins increased significantly with the cave hoard find.

Thanks for posting these, I'll have to put the pics in my digital library. Do you have any primo transition or post transition Potosi pieces?

Stan