Hi all, Recently got a good deal on this 4 reales minted in Toledo, Spain. I have been trying very hard to find some info on the assayers in this period. Surprisingly there is beautiful list of assayers from the new world. But none exist from old world Spain. Can anyone either provide a nice resource of Spain Mints and their assayers marks? If not can we attribute the date/assayer with the style of the coin? please advise. Thanks Larry
That's a very nice coin with a nicely centered strike. The assayer is P with a small o above. This is a variety of the plain P assayer for this mint. That assayer, whose name is unknown, at least in Krause, held the office from 1619 to 1635, a very long period. As for the date, it usually appears on the cross side from around 11 o'clock to about 1 o'clock, but it could be in another locations in the legend. On your coin, based on the photo, looking at the top of the cross side, going left to right, I think I see a 1 (a curved 1 typical for this mint), a 6 and possibly a 2. The final numeral is a tough one to decipher, but it might be another curved 1, making the date 1621. That last numeral is a guess on my part, but it might be correct. That would make your coin KM 36.3, with a value of $225 in Fine. For VF KM lists it at $400. I outlined what I think is the date on your coin: Keep in mind though, that the KM values are generally out of date, so you may want to check other coin listings and auction results. BTW what is the weight of your coin? Here's a Toledo 4 reales from my collection. This is an earlier assayer, C, and the date is (16)11. As you can see the cross side has a die shift strike, muddling up the legend as so often occurs. Still, part of the date, the last two numerals "11" can be seen from around 4 o'clock to about 5 o'clock. This coin weighs a hefty 14.0 grams, above the 13.5 grams standard.
Thanks once again, Robin for such a detailed and amazing response. My coin weighs 12.41grams. I was leaning toward assayer P. It really is too bad we can’t determine the names of the assayers. There must be a resource somewhere with their names? It’s especially odd considering he worked for so long and the detail we have on New world assayers is much more complete.
The date has to be the years between 1621 and 1635 and the single year 1639, according to Pellicer's Ensayadores, Las Emisiones Monetarias Hispanicas, (Barcelona, 2010), page 379 - but the identity of P remains a mystery
Just to add that in his work, Casa de Moneda de Madrid, by Glen Murray, he notes that the lack of documentation from the 17th Century has made it impossible to identify the following Madrid assayers: R 1630-30 P 1632-39 G 1659-62 R 1666-72 Madrid to Toledo is only one day's journey by horse. Did our mysterious P cover both mints all or some of the time?
At that weight your coin is likely salvaged, but in very good condition nonetheless. I guess records of assayer names for Toledo during the period of cob production are missing, except for C who it identified by Krause as Melchor Rodriquez del Castillo. I am not sure if this is the same assayer for the coin that I posted because Krause lists his years in office as 1593-1601, yet 1611 is listed for Assayer C, under KM 36.3 in the KM reference. If you don't have this reference, Standard Catalog of World coins: Spain, Portugal and the New World, you might consider getting a copy. The prices listed are out of date, but it is comprehensive and the prices can give you a relative idea of scarcity.
Thanks. I will look into that resource. That’s very interesting. Perhaps it’s the same assayer. Amazing how they just left this info out. Salvaged from a shipwreck? It seems to be so. The coin shipped from Canada. Not sure if that helps in anyway. I have been looking to buy that book. I will have to soon. Thanks for the recommendation.
There seems to be a difference of opinion here, or perhaps more acurately, a certain degree of confusion. Pellicer states that beginning in 1591 or 1593 and ending in 1600, the letter C stands for Juan Caballero, assayer of the Toledo mint. However, during the year of 1600, he was then succeeded by Melchor Rodriguez del Castillo who is the assayer until 1616. Interestingly enough, Rodriguez del Castillo was the assayer in the Segovia old mint from 1598 to 1602. In other words, he was responsable for two mints in the period 1600-1602. And a further intriguing fact is that the assayer in the old Segovia mint from 1623 to 1626 was Pedro Henriquez whose mark was the letter P - perhaps our elusive P from both Madrid and Toledo??? Pellicer does not identify the Toledo assayer P with the Segovia assayer P - or indeed with the Madrid P - because he has found no written proof. It is however a possibility that they were the same person
Would be cool if we could connect the two Ps. Could the details have been left out because of the crossover of the mint assayers?
