Hello I am new to the coin world, about 4 months to be exact, does anyone know what exactly what this is? Fake? Thanks.
Yep, it's a fake "pirate treasure" coin. The design is similar to the one used on my (real) Bolivian "cob" type 1694 1-real piece, which is a smaller silver denomination than the big gold coin your replica imitates. (If you had a real 8-escudo gold cob, you'd have yourself some $$$!)
They trick inexperienced folks every day. While most souvenir shop tourist replicas like this wouldn't fool a dealer or established collector for a second, to the uninitiated, they can be tricky. The real coins they mimic happen to also be kind of primitive and crude looking, as you'll notice with the one I posted. Early Spanish mints in the New World did not use state of the art technology, for the most part.
Actually, Sedwick is one of the go-to dealers for authentic shipwreck coins and other "pirate-y" coins.
