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About this journal

My rekindled interest in collecting started in 2009 with the impulse purchase of a 1783 shipwreck coin.  I did not imagine that collectible grade 8 reales coins were available until I started browsing Ebay to see whether I got a good deal on my first one.  After I realized what a poor deal I made, I set out to build a collection of quality 8 reales of the 1772-1791 design featuring the bust of Charles III.  I've added a modest collection of columnarios, too.

In 2013, I started a themed collection of coins depicting the sport of fencing, my other hobby/activity.

My current focus is on a collection of world silver crowns of the 16th to 18th centuries.  So far I have examples from the Commonwealth and England, France, Holy Roman Empire states and free cities, Swiss cantons, Dutch provinces, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Ragusa, Italian states, the Ottoman Empire, Malta, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, the United States of America and, of course, Spain and Spanish colonies.

Entries in this journal

My First US Silver Dollar!

Although I bid on many world lots, the first win of the year was an 1846-O Seated Liberty $1 Happy New Year fellow collectors! I started my New Year by participating in several of the big world coin auctions held in January, but failed to win lots, including any of the 8 reales from Guatemala that our esteemed NGC registry colleague, Isaac Rudman, offered in the Heritage World & Ancient Coins Auction in New York. So my first win of the year was a US coin from the Orlando FUN auction.
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What is a Coin of Hawaii?

And why does Heritage Auctions put them in their own category? Before they became a US territory in 1900, the islands of Hawaii had been unified into a kingdom that existed for nearly a century. The Kingdom of Hawaii issued their own coinage, cents in 1847 and a series of silver coins in 1883. The cents were struck by a private firm in Massachusetts and the silver dimes, quarters, halves and dollars were designed by Charles Barber and were produced at the San Francisco Mint. These issues ar
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Transitions within Transitions

The Mexico City "klippe" issues of 1732-1734 With the royal decree of 18 September 1728, Philip V initiated a radical change in the production of silver coins in Spain's colonies. By 1732, the Mexico City mint would issue the Americas' first milled coins that would become the world's preeminent trade dollar for the next century. Such a change from the earlier hammered "cobs" did not come with out some difficulties in reaching normal quotas. The new processes instituted machinery for rolli
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Top Executive Accepts Kickback

Establishes private mint on behalf of family Sorry to tease with a headline that could have come from current affairs but there's nothing new about powerful, greedy people finding ways to enrich themselves. In this case, I'm calling out Philip II of Spain, who in 1580, negotiated such a sweetheart deal with his cousin, Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, that he was presented with two coin rolling mills, constructed at the Hall mint, as a present. Today, we would deem such a considerable pers
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Custom Set Collage

Celebrating an Amazing 8s milestone This year I was able to add two coins to my set of Charles III 8 reales and complete the goal of an example from each mint that produced the portrait type issue. I figured out how to add an image to the custom set description and called on some dormant skills to illustrate the achievement. I left the commercial art field just as computer graphics were starting to take off so I remember 'copy' as what the photo department did, 'cut' requiring X-ACTO knife ski
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When the Colony becomes the Ruler

My vicarious trip to Brazil In 1807, Napoleon forced the Portuguese court into exile. Relocating to Rio de Janeiro, Portugal became the colony -- its kingdom ruled from Brazil. This transfer of power was formalized in 1815 when the Reino Unido de Portugal, Brasil e Algarves was established and Rio de Janeiro became its capital. This is the only example of a European nation ruled from one of its colonies. The Portuguese court returned to Lisbon in 1821 with Brazil gaining its independence t
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The Silver Dollars of '60

The challenge -- to build a birth-year set from only silver dollars. The dilemma -- only a few types were minted in 1960. My favorite type is the silver dollar, or more precisely, 36-42mm diameter coins, at least 23g, that are 50% or more silver (my definition). Also known as "crowns", these have been popular with collectors through the centuries, boosting the survivability of most varieties, even those with low mintages. The large surface area allows for more design detail and I like the w
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Hey, this guy has a face!

When a details coin looks better The leeuwendaalder aka lion daalder was first minted in the province of Holland in 1575 during the revolt against Spanish rule. By 1581 the seven Northern provinces were able to gain their independence, forming the Dutch Republic, formally recognized by the Spanish Empire in 1648. Freed from the burden of supporting a monarchy, the Dutch became a trading powerhouse, developing a globe-spanning colonial empire and the largest merchant fleet in the 17th century
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The Ugly Truth About 8 Reales

Beware the counterfeits, unofficial restrikes and modern forgeries! It's only natural that the world's most popular coins are the target of fraud. For the 8 reales, this has been a problem for over 200 years. Counterfeits, meaning those struck in the same time frame as the genuine issue, used less silver so that the counterfeiter gained by the difference in precious metal. Unofficial restrikes were produced after the genuine issue, were mostly faithful to design as well as silver content,
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Beautiful Thaler from Baltimore

I bought, sold and traded at my first coin convention and I'm darn sure the dealers got the better bargain, but I came away with my shirt and two new coins for my small but growing early modern world silver dollar set. I didn't attend any auctions and only visited for a few hours on Saturday morning but I got most of my goals accomplished. My main purpose was to get an opinion on a raw 1860 Seated Liberty Silver Dollar that I won on Ebay. After showing it around I felt confident enough to se
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Losing and rebuilding a world class collection

The story of Antonin Prokop highlights one of the important qualities of a serious coin collector -- sheer persistence. The Czech numismatist, Antonin Prokop, lived and worked in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and assembled an exceptional collection of Russian coins during Tsarist rule. In 1919, however, the Soviets considered it communal property and confiscated the collection. It was subsequently auctioned off to foreign dealers. Prokop was able to leave Russia in 1921, takin
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Surprise Gold Acquisition

I have an example of this coin as a silver proof but I didn't know they were minted in gold. My last journal was about my fencing coin custom set so I wasn't planning on writing about this topic so soon, but I spotted this coin on a German auction site and was very surprised to find out that it even existed. Like nearly all other coins depicting fencing, this is an Olympic commemorative. The historic French mint, Monnaie de Paris, produced silver 1-1/2 euro and gold 10 euro proof coins in 20
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Started My Fencing Coin Custom Set

I have a bunch of nice coins but only two slabbed examples so far. The ongoing Winter Olympics has inspired me to start organizing my collection of modern commemoratives featuring the sport of fencing. Although fencing is not a winter sport, it is one of five sports which has been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games. As I mentioned in one of my journals from last year (http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/JournalDetail.aspx?JournalEntryID=14114), I have been assembling a colle
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Just passed 100K Registry Points!!!

I knew I was close but didn't know which one would put me over the top. Hello fellow collectors. My first journal happens to coincide with my recent breakthrough of the 100K registry points milestone. Sure its just a number but it defines a point at which I can look back and reflect on the collection I have built in last three and a half years. For me, this all started with one of those "America's First Silver Dollars" followed by the realization that collectible grade eight reales coins (a
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The 8 Reales Pinnacle

My Colonial Mexico City 8 Reales Type set captures the top spot -- sort of... Last year, I worked at completing the Colonial Mexico City 8 Reales Type Set with the hope that I might get the top spot. This set is eight coins (how appropriate) from the milled 8 Reales series minted in Mexico City during Spanish rule. The years represented by this set, 1732-1821, comprise a significant section of history in the Americas. After all, these coins were the primary specie circulating throughout the
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When does bidding really close at a live auction?

Floor bidders have the advantage at Sedwick's Treasure Auction 14 I had an unfortunate experience on Wednesday night during Daniel Frank Sedwick's live auction of world coins. My maximum absentee bid was the starting price for a scarce 8 reales overdate, and I watched it go live through my internet connection from home (I had turned off the live audio/video feed). Although I was prepared to counter-bid, no additional bids came in and the item closed at my high bid. Great! Another slot fille
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Controversial Deaccession

Provides the acquisition opportunity of a lifetime I guess I don't pay much attention to general numismatic news because the events surrounding the deaccession (elimination of items by a museum) of the Huntington Collection of coins and medals from the Hispanic world passed by without my notice. I only started to check out what this Huntington Collection was after I won an interesting 8 reales from an auction house that specializes in ancient coins. Archer M. Huntington (1870-1955), philant
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Real de a Ocho de Dos Mundos

1762 Eight Reales from the Old World and New World I have a batch of 8 reales in for grading so while I wait on the results, I thought I would journal about the one that I find the most interesting, a 1762 Spanish 8 reales from Madrid. In the mid 1700's, the Spanish mints did not turn out many of the larger silver coins. Production of the 8 reales ended in 1736 and did not appear regularly until 1772, with the exception of the 1762 mintage. Charles III ascended to the throne near the end o
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Pandamonium strikes!

Update on my recent diversion while I wait for my latest 8 reales submission to be graded. I read Gary's (ghermann44) latest post about his time at the ANA show with Dave (Yankeejose) and noted that he finally bought his wife a silver panda coin. I've been meaning to journal about pandas for awhile so here goes. I got sidetracked from my 8 reales passion earlier this year when I bought an MS 70 2011 1 oz Silver Panda coin for my fiancee to commemorate the year that we met. Since pandas are h
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First Gold

I've only collected silver, mostly 8 reales, until this one. Now, you might expect an 8 reales collector to acquire a Spanish escudo as their first gold coin, but I've been wary of buying into the current gold bubble. I hope to acquire a few nice 8 escudos when, and if, the price of gold drops back to lower levels. As a fun distraction from my 8 reales focus, I've been building a theme set of coins that depict the sport of fencing, my other main hobby. Since the beginning of the year I'
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Amazing 8s

My custom set has more than 500 views! Thanks to all of you that have viewed my custom set "Amazing 8s -- Charles III Portrait 8 Reales 1772-1791". The special thing about a custom set is that it's uniquely your own. For my set I selected 20 coins from my collection of 8 reales, one for each year of issue that featured the bust of Charles III (some posthumously) and made sure to choose examples from a variety of mints. I did some research and tried to include a few interesting facts a
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Spanish Eight Reales countermarked as English Dollars

'Two kings heads and not worth a crown' Yes, this is another post about 8 reales. My last post did not get very many views but maybe that's because it was submerged in a flood of new journals that should have been posted as replies. If this one doesn't get many views, I promise to post on a different subject next time Anyway, several 8 reales, stamped with the head of George III by the Bank of England, have shown up on Ebay recently and reminded me that I needed to take some better photos
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Early Milled Eight Reales of New Spain

It's as close as I can get to the rare 1732 and 1733 8Rs Milled silver coinage in the Spanish Colonies started to appear in 1732 as a result of a royal decree of 1728 from the reigning monarch, Philip V, the first of the Bourbon Dynasty to rule Spain. Prior to this, colonial coins were hand stamped on irregularly shaped discs, known as cobs. Mexico City was the first of the colonial mints to use screw presses for their coinage on planchets of standardized diameter and thickness. Prior to the
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This REALLY Bugs Me!

An Ebay seller trying to take advantage of an NGC "clerical error". As an 8 reales collector, I frequently browse the Ebay listings for these coins. Several months ago I saw a NGC certified 1783 Mo FM listed. Now, for those in the know, this is the rarest of the series and no graded examples are in NGC's or PCGS's census. The photos clearly show severe seawater damage over the assayers initials. I might admit that the second initial looks more like an "M" than an "F" but it would be easy t
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The Raw Coin Submission Blues

When NGC decides to "Detail" your coins Well, my last submission of eight reales coins came home today. I had already seen the grading results online but the disappointment seems to have more impact when you have your box in hand. Slightly less than half got full grades -- my worst submission so far. These were mostly coins from Spanish auctions where I must rely on the pictures and catalog descriptions. I've learned to steer clear of "Rayitas" (scratches) and "Algo limpiar" (cleaned) so n
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