Nice Free Bee while Metal detecting!! Value is what the market will pay. If were a hole P8 in that grade could be worth a lot more .
That is a nice find. Portions of eight reales are very collectible and sell for decent sums. Even though two reale and four reale pieces were struck, they were rarely used and fractions of eight reale pieces were more commonplace.
Thats pretty good Doug, i honestly wouldve never even thought of that. I guess you just hear 8Rs being cut so much that you dont ever think of a piece O four, or a piece O two<<<<would that even be correct terminology?
Ehhhh - the question is arguable. If you read contemporary text the terms piece of two or piece of four are never used, only pieces of eight is used. The 2 and 4 reales coins were called just that, 2 or 4 reales. The 8 reales coins however were commonly called pieces of eight. In other words, a single item, 1 coin - not a coin cut up into pieces. Some folks think that the term came to be because they were cut up into pieces to make smaller change. But that is not the case at all. Individual coins were coins were called pieces, the word coin or coins itself was rarely ever used. If someone had an 8 escudos, or an 8 reales, the item (the coin) was called a Spanish gold piece, or a piece of 8. Here in the US the 8 reales was most commonly called a Spanish dollar. But there are those who argue that terms pieces of 4 or pieces of 2 did see some limited use in later years, but only long after the coins themselves ceased being used.
In this context would it seem to point to a single 2 reale coin as a Piece of 2, or are they claiming that if you received a half (or quarter) of a 2R that this portion would be considered the piece of 2. I understand what you mean about the name of the coin itself being referred to as a piece of whatever, but I legitimately wonder what they wouldve called a half or quarter portion of either the 2R or 4R.
Change Seriously, for the most part they just called them cut pieces. And the smaller denomination coins were rarely cut up because of most folk's reluctance to take them. That was because were rarely ever sure of what exactly they were getting unless they weighed them, and not many did that, or could. People were not familiar enough with the coins to tell what the cut pieces came from - meaning from a 2 or 4 reales coin, just by looking at remnants of the design and legends since those things changed depending on the date the coin was minted and what country minted it. But the cut pieces of the 8 reales were always the same sizes, a 1/8, 1/4, or 1/2 a coin, which are much larger than cut pieces of 2s or 4s. For the most part cutting the 2s and 4s just wasn't done. And plenty of those that you can find today, they were cut up today to make them easier to sell to those who are not familiar with the history.
Well think about the history of the US and how much we were based on the East Coast in the 1500s-1800s. Every one was located here and we only had a few sources for coinage, spanish 8 reales being one of them and VERY common (back then). So I would say almost anywhere along the eastern US would be prime hunting grounds for these things. I live in a coastal town below Virginia and plenty have been found here too.
Yes it is common to find them anywhere in the eastern US. As for where it and when it was minted, Spain, sometime in the 1720's.
