I've been collecting American coins for over 5 decades and have never run into this question, but am new to Colonial Reales. I have a half Reale that was minted in Mexico in 1811, but the assayers' initials don't match what Mr. Krause has in his books. He lists "HJ" but mine is unquestionably, without a doubt, no mistake "HI". Does anyone know a reason for this? TYVM
The letter J was the last letter added to the English alphabet, and was originally an alternate version of the letter I. Either this, or the book has a typo.
Thanks very much for your input. "HJ" is used on other Mexican Reales (1, 2, 4, 8) in 1811, and the letter "J" had been used since 1809 there. All I can figure is that "HI" is a mistake by the diemaker or a rarity (I hope). LOVE your quote by Mulder - never heard it before.
GDJMSP is right. I believe the legends on that coin are in Latin, correct? Therefore I would be J. As in Ivlivs Caesar. (HA! As in... get it?!?!?!)
I'm going to ask for more and/or other opinions on this coin. Here are two 1811 half Reales from obviously 2 different dies. The assayers on the first are "HJ" and on the other "HI". I can't think of why they would do this except that there was another assayer. Opinions (and thanks for putting up with me)?
Dutch - show us a pic of the whole coin in question. And if you can tell us the weight. It is possible the coin is a counterfeit, but if you were to go thru the Krause catalog, you would find coins with the HJ assayer mark minted as HI. They did use both variations. Also, there never was an I assayer mark (that was intended to be an I) used in the entire history of the Mexican mint starting in 1536.
