Early Milled Eight Reales of New Spain

[jgenn]

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 impression of the obverse and reverse designs, the planchets were passed through a device that impressed a repeating floral design on the coin's edge. These methods deterred clipping and made counterfeiting much more difficult. Quantities of milled coins from the first two years were very low and thus very rare to collect today.

 

I recently acquired a 1734 eight reales struck using a repunched 1733 die -- it's as close as I can afford to get to one of the early ones. As a point of reference, a 1733 Mo MF 8R, in AU condition, recently sold for 3300 euros (not including auction fees) in the Cayon subastas in Madrid on May 9th, 2013. My photo includes an enlargement of the date so that you can see the slant of the three within the "eye" of the four.

 

The photo is of the raw coin that I took indoors in my light box using two light sources with the macro function of my hand-held Canon G9. In post-processing, I cranked up the contrast and dropped the saturation to reduce the purple tint from the Reveal incandescent bulbs.

 

Wish me luck in getting this graded -- I'm hoping for XF40.

 

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[wdrob]

Wish me luck in getting this graded -- I'm hoping for XF40.

 

I think you have a really good chance at that. When are we going to see it in a slab?

[jgenn]

I may submit this coin and a few others at the Baltimore show later in June.