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<p>[QUOTE="GDJMSP, post: 1810029, member: 112"]It's a lot more complicated than that. The maximum and minimum permissible weights for any of the coinage of the Spanish colonial mints was always established by Royal Decree. As was the degree of fineness. And they were very strict on this, strict to the point that violation could end with execution.</p><p><br /></p><p>That said, the specific time period being discussed also has a bearing. For example, during the cob period coins always had an established minimum & maximum weight tolerance, and a fineness, but the very nature of the coins led to clipping which was a pervasive practice. As a result of this the weight of surviving coins is all over the map and the weight is almost never used to determine authenticity, because it cannot be.</p><p><br /></p><p>With the advent of the milled coinage in 1732 things changed. Milled coinage put an end to clipping, so the weight can be used to determine authenticity. With milled coinage the maximum permissible weight for an 8 reales was 27.2638 grams. The minimum was 26.8646 grams. That is a very strict tolerance level and yes they did indeed use 4 decimal places. And these tolerance levels applied to all mints.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now contrary to what a lot of people think loss of weight due to wear is almost a non issue. That is because there is no appreciable loss of weight due to wear until you get to very low grades like VG. Even coins in F have no appreciable loss of weight.</p><p><br /></p><p>There is however the issue of deliberate underweight coins with coins from Potosi and from a specific time period. These coins were deliberately minted and struck underweight by mint officials. And they were caught, and some were executed, others were punished in other ways. But the underweight coins still exist.</p><p><br /></p><p>So short and sweet, in some cases weight can be used to determine authenticity and in some cases it cannot be used. And you have to know all of this information to know which is which.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="GDJMSP, post: 1810029, member: 112"]It's a lot more complicated than that. The maximum and minimum permissible weights for any of the coinage of the Spanish colonial mints was always established by Royal Decree. As was the degree of fineness. And they were very strict on this, strict to the point that violation could end with execution. That said, the specific time period being discussed also has a bearing. For example, during the cob period coins always had an established minimum & maximum weight tolerance, and a fineness, but the very nature of the coins led to clipping which was a pervasive practice. As a result of this the weight of surviving coins is all over the map and the weight is almost never used to determine authenticity, because it cannot be. With the advent of the milled coinage in 1732 things changed. Milled coinage put an end to clipping, so the weight can be used to determine authenticity. With milled coinage the maximum permissible weight for an 8 reales was 27.2638 grams. The minimum was 26.8646 grams. That is a very strict tolerance level and yes they did indeed use 4 decimal places. And these tolerance levels applied to all mints. Now contrary to what a lot of people think loss of weight due to wear is almost a non issue. That is because there is no appreciable loss of weight due to wear until you get to very low grades like VG. Even coins in F have no appreciable loss of weight. There is however the issue of deliberate underweight coins with coins from Potosi and from a specific time period. These coins were deliberately minted and struck underweight by mint officials. And they were caught, and some were executed, others were punished in other ways. But the underweight coins still exist. So short and sweet, in some cases weight can be used to determine authenticity and in some cases it cannot be used. And you have to know all of this information to know which is which.[/QUOTE]
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