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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;robinjojo, post: 24608267, member: 110226&quot;]Hello Larry</p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry not responding sooner.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your 8 reales cob is a very interesting coin.&nbsp; It was minted in Potosi in what is now Bolivia.&nbsp; The assayer is Juan Ximenez de Tapia (T).&nbsp; The strike is very bold and well centered for these coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are a few interesting things going on with your coin.&nbsp; On the obverse he mint mark, P, was re-punched over a retrograde P.&nbsp; On the reverse the lions and castles are transposed. Also, some of the obverse legend is visible, which is not seen too often.&nbsp; I&#039;m not sure if &quot;VNRR&quot; makes any sense or not.&nbsp; Often the legends are quite garbled during this period of increasingly crude coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your coin lacks a date, which should be visible on the reverse from about 10 to 12 o&#039;clock.&nbsp; This is quite normal, given the flan size. There is a Greek cross between the P and T on the obverse.&nbsp; Later cobs generally have a dot or no dot between the two letters in the 1620s and beyond.</p><p><br /></p><p>I would put the coin in the year 1621 based on stylistic similarities with the cobs illustrated in Emilio Paoletti&#039;s reference on Potosi coinage (2nd edition), possibly No. 161.&nbsp; That would place your coin in the reign of Philip III.</p><p><br /></p><p>To give you an idea just how crude these coins got over the years, here&#039;s a cob from 1626, Potosi, assayer P (Martin de Palencia).</p><p><br /></p><p>Starting in 1629 and running for a few years, the quality of the coins did improve, but that did not last, with overall quality declining and deliberate debasing the rule at this mint until the trial in 1649 of one assayer and reform of the coinage starting in 1652, leading to some return to higher quality coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>KM19A</p><p>26.52 grams</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1563744[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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