I was looking at some of my spanish colonial coins, and discovered two interesting, scarce varieties. The first one is a 2-Reales coin, dated 1764, minted in the then spanish colony of Peru (Lima). Frank Gilboy's reference work for this coinage (The Columnarios of Central and South America) describes one assayer with initials JM for this year, and 3 varieties. One of these has the Lima mint monogram (LMA, all in one letter) instead of a normal M in the assayers initials. Looking closely at my coin, well that is what it has. Nice surprise! Gilboy developed a 9 point scale to describe relative rarities for this coinage. This coin is rated R4 in this scale, with R5 being rarest. Not bad. The other nice surprise was a 1-Real piece, also Lima mint, dated 1753. Gilboy describes 6 varieties for this year. A distinct variety is an overdate 1753/2. Close inspection of the date shows the overdate clearly. This one is also described as R5. I've had these two coin for decades - but never before paid attention to or noticed these minor varieties. Pays to look! Anothetr interesting coin I (re)-discovered today was a 1-real piece - Lima Mint again - but with a counterstamp GR (Georgius Rex) applied by the British in Grenada to allow the coin to circulate in their caribbean possession back in the 18th century. These counterstamps exist for 1. 2, 4 and 8 reales. All are scarce and interesting. Mints of the host coins are alway Lima and Mexico. 4 and 8 escudos (gold) are also known, and are extremely rare.
Nice coins and your research paid off as well. Wished i could have the time i need to do the same with coins i own. I havea few that may be of some value but havent looked them up and maybe by it raining here today that may change. Thanks for shareing.
Its always nice to find surprises you may have missed. I did the same thing months ago and found double die netherland silvers.
