Islandboy

I am very new to this subject, Please forgive my ignorance. I got an Atocha coin for Christmas, and see that there are many different "designs" (reversals?) between coins. How were Potosi coins made, such that they would have different placement of the parts of the shield and/ or the cross. Was each part of the shield (or cross) made separately? Or was there a single die for each side? Thanks/

diocletian

Hand made, hand hammered. Nice Christmas present newbie!

Google around and you'll find more info.

GDJMSP

It also depends on the date of the coin, designs changed from time to time. And the various mints sometimes had minor design changes as well. Often it is these design changes that allow us to identify which coins came from which mint.

If you wish to know more about these coins try reading what you can find here - Spanish Colonial

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Islandboy

Thanks for the advice. I believe I figured it out. They used several punches to make the coin, which if not in the proper location caused reversals (errors?).

GDJMSP

Yes there are examples known where a letter or letters of the legends, sometimes the assayer's initials, are reversed or even inverted.

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Islandboy

I posted pics of my coin under "introduction" section. Did not want to post them in two places. Can you tell me anything about it?

Islandboy

An update concerning 'Atocha' silver coin reversals: Dan at Sedwickcoins emailed me to say "The point is that almost all dies were made by "punching" the elements into the dies, and in this particular period the die-engraver was in the habit of applying the punches in transposed positions (like in the shield and cross) but also he crafted at least some of the punches themselves backwards (like the backwards P's). In fact it is the idosyncrasies of die-punching that make it possible to link different coins struck from the same dies despite doubling and weakness that would otherwise make it impossible to tell."