For many years I had an almost single-minded pursuit of collecting Spanish colonial and mainland coins, primarily 8 reales. Since around 2017 I switched my focus back to ancients, an area that I collected back in the 1980s through the early 1990s. This is an 8 reales "cob" that was minted in the Spanish city of Potosi, part of the Viceroy of Peru. Potosi is located at a very high altitude in the Andes, near what was once the most important deposit of silver ore in the world. It was said, with obvious hyperbole, that enough silver was extracted from the mines of Potosi to build a bridge of silver from there to Spain. By any standard these hammer struck coins were crudely made. Some, from certain periods, are less crudely made, but on the whole comparing the workmanship of a Potosi cob with, say, and intermediate Athenian owl, would make the owl appear as a masterpiece of style and execution. This coin was produced in 1770, with the date appearing as (1)770, between the pillars and above the waves. The designers decided that there just wasn't enough room between the pillars of Hercules to accommodate the 1. The Assayers' initials, V (Jose de Vargas y Flor) and Y (Raimundo de Yturriaga) appear, respectively in the upper right and lower left of the pillars on the obverse. An interesting feature of this coin is the possible presence of a J in the lower left, over the Y. That is very rare, if it truly is a J. I'm still trying to figure that one out. The P in the upper right and lower left is for Potosi. The reverse has the cross with the arms of Castile and Leon, all very crudely done. The V repeats to the right of the cross, albeit very blundered. Also the tops of the date repeat below, again quite blurry. As coins of this period go, this example has a nice wide flan, with some of the legend showing on the reverse as part of the kings name: CA, for CAROLVS (Charles III of Spain). This coin weighs 27.0 grams which is in the accepted range for these chunky coins. KM 45
