This 8 Reale Weighs 30.1 Grams..Real or Fake?

[jneice]

I bought this coin with the finest hand crafted custom made 18K bezel I've ever seen for a cob coin years ago on an minor online auction site for $105.00. The bezel and bail, (bail is 14K ), weighs 11.4 grams. But the coin weighs 30.1 grams according to my scale. Can you guys take a look at this coin and tell me if it looks fake? The weight just puzzles me. As you know it should weigh approx. 26+ grams. I honestly believe the seller did find the coin on the Fl. cost in a specific local years and years ago after a major hurricane. He told me he was not looking for or thinking about "old coins", but only jewelry, change etc. It was obvious he knew nothing about cob coins as I pecked him for as much info about this find via private email. There is more to his story, I can't really induldge here. But I can say I've been blown away ever since. Its a Mexico mint , Phillip V for sure, (fake or authentic). I knew that instantly by the pictures he posted. I felt he must have had to have found it as nobody would spend that much money, (even in those days), for a bezel such as this one, unless they were very proud of their find. It defiantly looks as though the coin was clipped by an assayer, and in the sea for a long time. I just took it out of its bezel today for the first time ever and weighed the coin seperate from the bezel.

The man was devastated that it only sold for the opening bid. That was his first and I assume last internet auction. But to his credit he actually sent it to me and even exchanged quite a few emails with me as I was very curious about the location of the find and other info he told me about.

Thanks for any help...

The last picture looks as though the cob has been indented by the bezel. It hasn't , it just is tarnished around those edges.

 

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[capt dom]

If somebody knocked a coin off to make this piece of jewelry
they certainly made an effort bring it up to weight, possibly to the point
where happens to be overweight.... Maybe some of its extra
weight comes from it being holed
and then later plugged....

I am sure there is someone out there that will have an opinion
that will carry more weight than this observation.

It obviously is not the best cast or "strike" and should be put back in its bezel
and be put to work making its wearer a more
exciting and devil-make-care scoundrel....

 

[realeswatcher]

If somebody knocked a coin off to make this piece of jewelry they certainly made an effort bring it up to weight, possibly to the point where happens to be overweight.... Maybe some of its extra weight comes from it being holed and then later plugged....

I am sure there is someone out there that will have an opinion that will carry more weight than this observation.

It obviously is not the best cast or "strike" and should be put back in its bezel and be put to work making its wearer a more exciting and devil-make-care scoundrel....

Resized/rotated pic above. Always easier to view/examine that way...

Dom, anyone who actually goes and fishes these out of the sea carries some weight! And especially true for a paesan'! And LOL at 'making its wearer a more exciting devil-may-care scoundrel' - that's priceless!! I think I have to concur with that...

Regarding the plug - a plug that neatly fills the previous hole would only add significant weight if the plugging metal had a much higher density than the rest of the coin. Silver is relatively "heavy", with a density of a 10.5g/cm³, so there's really nothing you would plug it with that would increase weight appreciably (lead is only a bit higher at 11.4, copper is 9.0, zinc is 7.1). Gold, of course, is very heavy - 19.3, but platinum tops that at 21.4.

As to the coin itself... as Dom hinted at, it's a cast copy/replica/fake, whatever your word of choice is. It IS a rather interesting one, though, I'll say that... The detail is somewhat crude, beyond anything seen on a real piece (the castles are the worst) and the surfaces show discrete, randomly scattered pores typical of a cast.

The odd thing is the planchet and its massive size (assuming he made the shield about to scale with a real piece)... Look at how much of the legend (and beyond) is on the planchet! I spliced together pics of this and (2) full-weight Mex 8R, comparing them at roughly the same scale and with their shields in line The size of this piece might be distorted a bit due to the photo angle, but still, that's big... Looking at the reverse and that ridge of sorts around the periphery, it looks like the obverse somehow spilled out well beyond its intended borders. That's why a cast planchet, of what looks to be approximately correct thickness, considering all those air bubbles trapped within it, got to be a heavy 30 grams.

It's funny, a similar example was just posted on our separate cob website, where someone also has a "semi-fantasy" cast cob (not so crude that it's cartoonish, but not accurate enough that it was cast solely from a genuine coin's impression) in an 18K bezel. My guess on that one holds for this also... Judging by the semi-crudeness of this piece, this piece seems like a homemade, individual project, not something done for mass distribution. I guess someone wanted to mount their handiwork in some nice 18K...

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

It's a really weird looking fake.