help to ID a cob

[dimeinator]

hello i have been lurking for over a year,i think i finnaly found something good to post.i found this cob yesterday on a gulf coast florida beach with my MD.when found it was black on top and had green sand stuck to the bottom.the top has a lion on it and the bottom has a castle with possibly the letter E or H.in the photos it is shown with a dime for size reference.the only thing i have done to this so far is to rinse the sand off.any help would be greatly apprecated.possible date?spanish?english?how to clean?possible value?thank you in advance.

[divewrecks]

Hey, very cool find! It is a Spanish coin, probably a 2 maravedis denomination judging by size. Let me do a little research to see if I can narrow down a date range based on the legible design elements. Roughly where did you find it? Perhaps it was lost on one of the early Spanish expeditions to Florida (Narvaez, DeSoto, etc)!

Congrats....I'm jealous....Stan

[dimeinator]

hi stan thanks for the info.from my research i was pretty sure it was real.i just wanted to be sure.the cob was found on madeira beach in the wet sand.after digging a lot of trash targets i was just about ready to give up.after i dug the cob i stayed 2 more hours.LOL

[divewrecks]

Madeira Beach is where the Narvaez expedition landed in 1528. Now we just have to tie your coin to that visit....

Stan

[dimeinator]

hi stan thanks for the update.the excitment is starting to sink in.tossed and turned a lot last night.i have a few hours to kill i think i should go back to the beach to MD somemore.LOL

[Mackaydon]

One cuatro if 18mm ; two cuatos if 22mm
Philip II 1559-1598
As shown here: www.maravedis.org/felipe2.html

[divewrecks]

I believe it is from the Burgos mint. See the one on the very bottom of this page....

http://www.maravedis.org/felipe2cuartos2pag.html

Stan

[dimeinator]

hi stan thanks for all your help.i had no idea there were so many different types.i just got back from the beach,no cobs this time.just the usual beach stuff clad,foil,pull tops,bottle caps,ect.plus a very huge back ache.lol.any tips on how to clean the cob with out doing any damage to it?or should i just leave it natural?

[divewrecks]

You may want to bookmark these two sites. There is enough info here to make you an expert...

http://metaldetectingworld.com/clean...ion_coin.shtml

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/crl/conserv...nual/index.htm

Dig all targets & keep the faith!

Stan

[dimeinator]

thanks for the great sites,i have them bookmarked.i probably won't get out MD anymore untill after the holidays.thanks for all the great info.

[SFLOcenEng]

A short note on cleaning.

I too was lucky enough to find a cob once and only once so far. It WAS a 2 reale, found on the treasure coast. When I found it, it was very thin and black. I wanted to clean it so bad, I could see it silver and shining in the future.

Well the cleaner it got the less definition there was on the coin which in turn drove me to clean it more and by various means. In the end I cleaned it so much that now all I have left is a plastic baggy with some small pieces and some dust that I SWEAR to you was at one time a Spanish cob!

I not saying don't clean it but if you do be careful. To me you coin looks great the way it is. Hey it's a silver cob that has been sitting on the beach for a couple hundred years that's what they look like. I would think long and hard before I dropped it in any half baked solutions!

Good Luck and great find. You seem to be one of the lucky few on that coast, I don't see too many reports. Thanks for posting.

Anthony