I am usually over on the US Coins Forum since I collect various US series including US Type including Colonial. I have a 1754 1/2 reale, 1773 2 reale and a 1740 8 reale as part of that type set and hope to eventually include 16th or 17th century cobs and a Spanish pistareen. My view of "US Type" is that if it circulated in what became the continental US, then it's part of US Type. An expansive view, I grant you. I am gradually dipping my toe into Spanish Colonial coinage from the 1500s to 1825. Gradually because I know almost nothing about the field so am not in a position to smartly acquire examples better, rarer or more expensive examples. This post was prompted because last night at my local coin club meeting I purchased a 1813 4 Reale piece (ICG VF-20), Santiago mint, FJ assayer, label attribution KM#67. Paid $65. I would post good photos but my camera is on the fritz so these are the best my cell phone has to offer. So, to my questions: Does anyone have a recommendation on a good basic book on the Spanish Colonial coinage, then a more advanced book, and finally a more advanced book? What does the KM attribution refer to? Are there available price guides? I can't get NGC to fork over anything about 4 reale coins. I have not seen any similar coins on the Heritage auction results but haven't looked at all 6,000 results for Spanish coins. eBay was a waste of time. I found a couple of well-worn Carolus 4 reales whose pricing seemed to bear out something I had read elsewhere that 4 reale coins are generally pricier than 2 and 8 reale pieces. Any help would be appreciated.
KM refers to the Krause Manuel and it is a price guide for World coins. It is divided by centuries. I don't have the 19th century version; I have the 18th, 20th and 21st century versions. They stopped producing them a year or two ago. The NGC site has a world coin price guide you can use as well as Numista, a website that has information about world coins.
Here is a pic of the page with 4 reales minted in Chile in the 1700s. I will look for the ones you list from the 1730s, likely minted in Spain but the mint mark would be required.
I don't know how basic. Krause Catalogue covers it all at a low price. Las Monedas Espanolas by Juan Cayon but it is in Spanish. Brad Yonaka has published two Variety Guides (Agorocu Consulting Inc. Long beach CA)
Ordered this from Sedwick Cobs. I know this is an obsolete price guide but they often have information on the coins themselves. Searched Whitmans site thinking they might have one of their Guidebooks on the topic but they don't.
I collect Spanish Colonial, focusing specifically on the Santiago, Chile mint, with an occasional coin from the Lima, Peru mint. My focus period covers the reign of Carlos III to Fernando VII. Regarding reference catalogues and pricing: There is a very detailed work by Cayon which you can download from the internet. I believe there is a new upfated version which come out 2 or 3 years ago. As insider mentioned, there is the Brad Yonaka book on columnario coinage (Dos Mundos) minted until 1772. It covers all mints of the New World which minted this coins. Before Yonaka's book, the main reference guide for Columnarios was Frank Gilboys work. This work is perhaps a bit dated now, but an excellent background source on all aspects of New World mints, as well as (of course) varieties, including rarity ratings. None of these cover prices. For the Lima mint, I have an ancient (1970's) copy of a catalogue by Dale Seppa. It does cover pricing. Maybe there has been an updated version in the meantime. For Santiago coins there are reference works, notably C. Jaras voluminous work which covers the period from 1749 (opening of the Santiago mint), until 1772. It does not cover pricing, but describes the scarcity of the various issues in both gold and silvers. More recently, a catalogue by P. Moya has appeared which covers all silvers colonial issues, from the 8 reales to the 1/4 real struck at the Santiago mint, i.e from 1750 until 1817. It is a practical reference for prices. What I use for pricing is primarily prices realized from Acsearch, and also the Heritage archive and the Aureo/Calico Archive (excellent).
Spanish colonials have a plethora of counterfeits. Contemporary, later forgeries for the bullion trade with China and modern copies intended to fool today's collectors. I recommend Bob Gurney's book Counterfeit Portrait Eight-Reales: The Un-real Reales if you intend to hunt for raw or low value slabbed examples of 8 reales. You can find many highly informative posts from him as swamperbob in the world coin forum on CCF.
I’m not an expert on pricing but $65 for a problem free 4 reales sounds like a steal. I don’t see that denomination come up very often on the auction sites. You did the right thing by buying certified. I have an uncertified bust 8 reales that I bought in San Juan over 20 years ago that Dan Sedwick himself later told me was genuine based on the photos and weight I sent him. All of my other ones are slabbed. I’ve noticed that the AU coins have a big range in prices depending on toning and eye appeal. Sometime I’d like to get a real nice one.
There's one good general guide of hammer struck Spanish colonial coins. It is The Practical book of Cobs, by Daniel and Frank Sedwick. This book is designed for the beginner, and it provides a thorough description of the mints, assayers and ship wrecks that have yielded vast quantities of these coins over the past several decades. Sedwick and other sellers have this book for sale on eBay and elsewhere. The latest release is the fourth edition. There are more specialized references for Spanish colonial coinage, including milled coinage. As mentioned by other posts, Krause Publications has a price guide just for Spanish and Portuguese coinage, colonial and mainland. This is the Standard catalog of world coins, Spain, Portugal and the New World. As with other Krause catalogs, the prices for the grades listed tend to be out of date, but they do provide a general guide of rarity based on type, mint, date and grade. I checked eBay, and there are some sellers offering this reference. I think these two references will give you a good basis and introduction to collecting these fascinating and historical coins.
