Pieces of 8

[Bullionaire]

Stumbled across this Mexican 'ship-wreck' 8 reales a few days ago and after a bit of research, had to take a punt on it.

If anyone knows more about them, it would be great to hear from you. Main questions:

1. Is it genuine? It weighs 26.45g, So within the weight range I would expect from my research. It also looks like the pics I've seen online. I can't spot any errors that would indicate a fake to me.

2. What grade do you think it would get if I graded it? Rough guesses welcome, I won't hold you to them I'm useless at predicting grades!

3. Is there any way to determine what ship it may have been wrecked on? I have no info from the seller regarding this

 

 

 

[AgCoyote]

I can't help you but that is a super cool coin. I hope it's real. It'd be awesome if Spain minted these and made them a standard bullion coin ala the Brittania, Eagle, Maple,Kangaroo.

[RacerCool]

It is dated 1739, and minted at the Mexico City mint. There aren't any chop marks on it, so it might not have seen circulation in the Orient. With that info you might be able to narrow down what ship wrecks are known, when and where they went down, and what they were known to have on board. Beyond that, I don't know how you'd know what wreck it came from. 

Aside from that, that's a very nice looking coin, much nicer looking than my buddy's ex-girlfriend. If it's from a wreck, it wasn't exposed to any sea water, by the looks of it.

[Bullionaire]

15 minutes ago, RacerCool said:

It is dated 1739, and minted at the Mexico City mint. There aren't any chop marks on it, so it might not have seen circulation in the Orient. With that info you might be able to narrow down what ship wrecks are known, when and where they went down, and what they were known to have on board. Beyond that, I don't know how you'd know what wreck it came from. 

Aside from that, that's a very nice looking coin, much nicer looking than my buddy's ex-girlfriend. If it's from a wreck, it wasn't exposed to any sea water, by the looks of it.

Thanks for your reply. It's a 1735 date though I think, it's just a weird 5. I will start looking up wrecks that might fit the date! Probably a lot around that time though 

[Peacemaker]

Unfortunately, at just over 0.6g under weight with very minimal wear, it doesn't look good, although in them days i suppose tolerances would be far greater than the coins minted today. Whats tests have you done?

[MickD]

Does look a bit too good to be true, can you post a picture of the rim please?

[Bullionaire]

6 minutes ago, DaveWheat89 said:

Unfortunately, at just over 0.6g under weight with very minimal wear, it doesn't look good, although in them days i suppose tolerances would be far greater than the coins minted today. Whats tests have you done?

I've just done a magnet test, which it passed. Slow slide down

[Bullionaire]

2 minutes ago, MickD said:

Does look a bit too good to be true, can you post a picture of the rim please?

Sure

[Peacemaker]

Just now, Bullionaire said:

I've just done a magnet test, which it passed. Slow slide down

great result bud, pretty confident it is silver, id say that is enough to take the leap and get it graded, that will be the only way to determine

[Murph]

Seemingly they grind the edges on some fakes to round them off because the casting leaves evidence.  This makes the edges rounded and often brighter as it's done after the fake aging. 

Yours looks a bit rounded at the edges and shinier than the rest.

This would make me a little suspicious.

 

Fakes are often edged after the coin has been cast and real ones are edged prior to striking afaik so damage to the denticles can also be evidence of a fake.  The problem is there are so many different fakes of these and some are silver and some were made in the same time period as the real ones.  You'd really need to ask a collector who has experience with these.

 

[DarkChameleon]

You really need a coa to tell if it's wreck silver, it's in a way too good condition in my opinion...look at mel fishers coins that came from the atocha and even the best are not as good as this, my coin was from a river haul but still with any kind of movement from tides would slick most coins out or some size together so you find break marks where they have been seperated.

 

[Bullionaire]

I emailed Daniel Sedwick from https://www.sedwickcoins.com/about.htm

He emailed back within an hour (very good of him to give his opinions/expertise for free) and said:

"Impossible to tell for sure without examining it in person, but at least I can tell you the details are correct, and given the amount of corrosion I would expect the weight to be about 25 grams (if not, then more likely it is fake). It has the look of a coin from the Rooswijk shipwreck of 1739/40."