Cool piece of 8 from Great Britain

[bigjerryok]

Alas not mine (although I do have one which the kind people on this site identified for me), but a pal found this beautiful piece of 8 recently. Could anyone help with an ID please? TIA.

Jerry

PS Also attached pics of my Mexico City cob .. anyone know why it's called cob?

 

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[ToddsPoint]

Cob= cut off bar. Gary

 

[washingtonian]

Cob= cut off bar. Gary

I never knew that!

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

First is Potosi Bolivia around 1617. Second is Mexico around 1640 or a little earlier.

 

[islamoradamark]

u guys did good nice looking finds

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Congrats on the awesome coins!

 

[smokeythecat]

I never knew that either!

 

[tnt-hunter]

I has been said the Spanish name for the coins was “cabo de barra”or end of the bar because it was cut off the end of a bar of warm silver and then hand hammered with a die on an anvil and the other in hand. The English dropped the o and pronounced it cob. The coin was then cut down to the proper weight. That’s why many of them have one or more straight sides.

If you have questions about cobs The Practical Book of Cobs is a great resource if you can find one. Keep swingin.

 

[Red-Coat]

Cob= cut off bar. Gary

“Cob” isn’t an acronym and doesn’t stand for anything in that sense. It is, as @tnt-hunter says, likely derived from “cabos de barra”, where “cabos” literally means the tips or nub ends of something. The currency was originally made by slicing the end off a more or less round bullion bar to produce a planchet for the coin. The etymology is uncertain but either the Spanish “cabos” gave us the corruption “cob” in dialectal English or the two words had a common root. The word “cob” in Middle English came to mean a small rounded mass, lump or heap (of anything… including coal, bread etc). The archaic Dutch “kubb” and “kobbe” with similar meanings likely had the same derivation.

Beautiful coin!

 

[A2coins]

Holy moly those things look so awesome. Thats a great find

 

[bigjerryok]

Thanks so much guys. I am ashamed to admit that when I found mine, it remained in my probably junk pile until an incredulous pal put me right!