A very crude, but rare cob, Potosi, Assayer P, 1626 - full date

The coinage of Potosi, Bolivia, in the 1620's can be characterized as crude, very crude. Flans were poor prepared, often with silver of questionable fineness, very poorly engraved dies, rife with misspellings, transposed lions and castles, retrograde letters, and sloppy, very sloppy strikes. This coin is no exception.

Minted in 1626, this cob has all of the characteristics of coinage from this unsettled period at Potosi, with a very crude flan, uneven strike and transposed lions and castles on the reverse. Therefore, it is quite unusual that the coin, for all of its faults, has a clear assayer, (P- Mario Martin de Palencia) and, more importantly, a full, legible date. No guess work is needed here; there it is, on the reverse, running from 9 to 11 o'clock.

This coin was acquired at the Sedwick Treasure Auction of May, 2017, lot 0878.

Potosi, 1626
8 reales
Philip IV
Potosi
Obverse: Spanish Hapsburg shield, crown above, mint and assayer to left, value to right, peripheral legend, mostly illegible.
Reverse: Transposed lions and castles with a central cross, date to the left, peripheral legend.
About VF
KM 19A; Paoletti No. 168.

26.52 grams



Collecting Spanish cobs, both colonial and mainland has been a pursuit of mine for nearly forty years. It is amazing how time flies by, but during that time I have been privileged collect and examine these fascinating coins from sellers ranging from Ponterio and Associates to Freeman Craig. Each is unique, no cookie-cutter coins here. They possess both history and an appeal by the very nature of their crude, hammer struck method of manufacture.

So, please post whatever you wish.

Thanks.

 

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I applaud your passion/focus and share the fascination and appreciation. Unless I'm incorrectly identifying, in The Practical Book of Cobs, the Sedwicks note that "dated specimens from this period are among the rarest from this mint" while speaking of Potosi "P" '24-'26 cobs. I only have one cob at the moment that's from Lord M. It's a single Real, which is kind of dwarfed by those large 8's (only 2.46 grams), but definitely one that pleases! Thanks for posting.

 

That's correct, even partially dated cobs from the 1620s to 1651, the last year of the shield design, replaced the following year by the pillar and wave obverse at Potosi, are rare.

The problem is not just a lot of the legend off the flan, it is also the often horrendous strikes which were frequently uneven and drastically doubled and shifted. A date on one of these coins can start with a fairly clear 1 and perhaps even a 6, but a die shift strike can rotate the 1 and 6 over the last two numbers of the date, which can make determining those final numbers a real challenge.

That problem, supposedly was addressed with the introduction of the pillar and waves design, which has, depending on the period, either the last two numbers of the date between the pillars, or, in the 1700's the last three number of the date. However, even with this format coins were often weakly struck in the area of the date, or, again, doubling of the strike renders the date illegible or difficult to decipher. So, dates remained problematic with many cobs through 1773, the last year cobs were minted at Potosi. The milled 8 reales that replaced the cobs generally assured that all of the essential information could be found on any given coin.

I think it is important to remember that cobs were coins of necessity, products of expediency. Hammer struck coins were easy to produce, while machine struck coins, which actually were being produced in Spain starting in the late 1580s, are very costly to manufacture. It made sense, then, to have the colonial mints, located near the silver and gold sources, to quickly convert the ore into coins that were really little more than ingots impressed with the Spanish shield, giving them legal status. Unfortunately, this method opened the doors to fraud at the Potosi Mint, with coins produced with underweight flans and highly debased silver. This fraud, instigated by various assayers and other officials lead eventually to the trial and execution of one of the assayers of that mint, Juan Ramírez de Arellano in 1649.

 

It’s probably safe to assume that the overall influence, impact, and implications of these are very under-appreciated. For 200 years (give or take) they were a standard to many silver/gold deprived imperial frontiers, colonies, etc… As you know, there’s even a little “treasure map” in the work I listed earlier lol… It highlights over 50 “shipwrecks that have yielded cobs” across 6 continents during this period. I think it’s worth mentioning if only to highlight the global significance. Excellent post and rare example, RobinJoJo. Hopefully, my attributions are correct on my piece...

Potosi, 1694 (Pillar and Waves)
1 real
Assayer: VR (Pedro de Villar)
Charles II

 

Thanks.

Yes, you have the correct information on your Potosi 1 real cob. It's a nice coin, with clear detail of the important information. I even see part of the "POT...", for Potosi, on the pillars side, in the legend. The P appears to be partially crammed into the O, probably due to the space limitation of the 1 real die, but that's just a guess on my part.

The hammer struck cobs were the mainstay of trade from the late 1500s all the way through to the wars of independence in the first two decades of the 1800s. They continued to dominate trade, especially in Asia, in the form of republic machine-struck coins, primarily from Mexico. No other coin was able to knock the 8 reales off of its pedestal, though other countries tried, notably the United States, Japan and Great Britain, without any meaningful success. Old habits die hard.

 

Going backwards in time, here is a Potosi cob, Philip II, Assayer B. It is one of the first cobs I bought back in 1981.

It came from Hal Blackburn of Carmel by the Sea, California. I remember driving to his shop on Saturdays. I had quite a few Morgan dollars at the time, that I collected based on Wayne Miller's book. By 1982 I was growing tired of collecting by VAM numbers, and I wanted to focus on a field of numismatics that had a combination of history, romance, politics, and economics. The Spanish colonial and mainland hammer-struck coinage became my focus for the next thirty years, until I shifted my focus to ancients, a field that I collected on and off during that span of time.

This coin matches Paoletti Group B2, Philip II, 1578 to 1581. It seems closest to No. 70. He mentions that the castles for his group include courtyards and the lions are clearly rampant, as they are on the Hapsburg shield.

Generally speaking, the early cobs of Potosi, struck during the reign of Philip II, exhibit high standards of quality. They were produced on wide, fairly round flans, and the strikes, while exhibiting some unevenness, as is almost always the case with hammer-struck coins, are mostly very well centered, with complete or nearly complete legends. The dies themselves were skillfully engraved. As the coinage progressed from Philip II to his son, Philip III and then to Philip IV, things started going downhill at the mint.

I apologize for the blurry photos. They were among the first that I took in 2020, when I was learning to use this digital SLR. I'm sill learning.



As I take more photos of the cobs, and there are a lot to go through, I'll post them.

 

Here's an 8 reales macuquina from the Potosí mint dated 1657, from the reign of Philip IV

 

That's an attractive cob, with two complete dates and lots of other data.

What's the weight?

 

Fortunately, NGC lists the weight on the label for these kind of coins -- this one is 27.60g

 

That's a good, solid weight for these coins.

 

I thought that I will add cobs as I photograph them to this thread, rather than create a thread for each coin, which, while the coin might deserve one, can be quite tedious.

Here's my latest effort at the visual arts, a Potosi 8 reales, 1632, assayer T.

There was a notable improvement in the quality of the cobs coming out of Potosi, starting in 1629 and lasting up to around 1633. The strikes became bolder and generally better centered, especially when compared to the very poor quality of most cobs from the 1620s. Additionally, the flan quality improved, generally, as did weight.

I think that if you are looking for a nice Potosi type dated shield 8 reales, a 1629 or 1630 cob with at least a partial date (remember, the last two digits matter the most), is the way to go. Many of these on the market are from the Porto Bello Hoard that was discovered many years ago in Panama.

This coin is not from that hoard. Instead, it is a salvaged cob from Indonesia, from an unidentified wreck. Aside from the salvage surfaces, the overall detail on both sides is quite decent. This example is indicative of the quality of the coinage of this period. The date, on the cross side, is quite bold, with the 3 a little weak, but legible. Note that a Z is used for 2 in the date.

The peripheral legends, as usual with this type, are uneven. The central details are quite clear, with minimal doubling; the cross side being most attractive.

Paoletti 187
KM 19a

26.7 grams