Spanish Gold Coin...Identify?

[Barbwiregirl]

Any ideas what this coin is and maybe an estimated price? I also posted in 2 other sections but was told this was the best section to post in...

It has been tested to be 22k gold or better (by a jeweler) and has a separate bezel around it that is 14k gold. The weigh is 6.5 or 6.9 (I forgot exactly).

Thanks in advance for any info!!

 

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[cuzcosquirrel]

It's pretty much the same deal as what I posted elsewhere. Just what time peroid it comes from is easiest to find from the little crowns/fleur de leis between the arms of the cross. I had said 1660 earlier, but it could also fall into the 1630's and have originated from the "mesudo hoard."

I'd say about 1600 dollars plus 350 for the bezel. That is retail. Probably someone like Frank Sedwick will offer you a bit less as a retailer. It would be better to go through someone who knows the coins than to pawn it, where you will get quite a bit less.

 

[realeswatcher]

Because your piece would be way light for a genuine piece (6.9g in bezel... a bezel that size will weigh 2-2.5g or a bit more, so the coin itself is way under prescribed weight of about 6.7g), I checked the website of an outfit that produces a lot of cob coin replicas, including replica gold cobs done in 24K gold. I found what I'm pretty certain is a match to your piece on one of his inventory pages... it's the piece to the left... compare this to yours rotated in the same manner:

http://atocha1622.com/replica4.htm

Scroll down about 10 rows on that page to number BW1149 (use Find In Page)... He doesn't show the shield side, but the cross side shown has the exact same shape and imprinted detail pattern as yours, in the exact same type bezel. Authentic cobs, which were hand-hammered on hand-cut planchets, are of course never identical in this way.

It tested as high purity, so we can assume yours is 24K the way the website advertises (not a base metal version that was plated). Your "coin" itself likely weighs about 4.6g, and 14K bezel about 2.3g (give or take)... that would yield just about $300 in bullion value given $1525/oz. gold. The website shows his retail price as $400... I do wonder if that has been updated for $1500+/oz. gold., as that really isn't much of a markup, considering manufacturing and crafting labor.

So, to summarize, this a 24K replica coin of a Bogota mint 2 Escudos, likely 1630's, give or take (aka Santa Fe de Bogota mint, modern Colombia). Cuzcosquirrel and Mackaydon were on target in their attribution of the style. If you wanted to sell, it's definitely eBay fodder (FULLY explaining that this is a replica, of course)... As far as price? Eh, maybe stick it up for a grand OBO (or best offer), and see what comes along.

 

[realeswatcher]

For the cob enthusiasts here, this is a good exercise in two respects. First, attributing out the mint and time frame... Second, determining its authenticity.


1. ATTRIBUTION: A couple of diagnostic points related to pegging the style of this replica "cob", in consideration of the comments quoted below:

"Not a Mexican cross, they have the balls on the ends. Looks like a Bogota cross. Shield is broken which is the first thing that made me think, weird, maybe fake."

"Don't think the cross is right for a bogey; Seems too small - more like a Mexican cross"

-- The "balls at the end of the cross" diagnostic (aka The Florenzada cross, used exclusively on the silver cobs of Mexico so its presence can be used to easily ID a silver piece as being Mexican) doesn't necessarily apply to the gold cobs. While Mexico DID use a variant of the Florenzada cross during 1711-13, they used the simpler flat-edged cross in all other years, similar to Spain and Bogota... I believe called the Crusader's Cross (picture the Crusaders' shields from your Medieval history books)

-- Strike doubling is not at all weird on genuine cobs, both gold and silver... One might think that maybe they would "try harder" with the gold, but there are plenty of really crude, double-struck and/or badly-centered gold escudo cobs out there...

-- Part of "PHILIPPVS" is visible in the legend on this piece... but there is no Bourbon escutcheon of 3 fleur-de-lis in the center of the shield. That means it CAN'T be Mexico. Mexican cob production didn't begin until the late 1670's under Charles II. The only Philip whose name appeared on a Mexico cob was the Bourbon Philip V, whose Mexico pieces bore the Bourbon three fleur-de-lis escutcheon in the center of the shield.

EDIT: I originally stated that no Bourbon fleur-de-lis meant it couldn't be Philip V from ANY of the shield-type gold cob mints - namely Spain (all), Mexico, AND Bogota. HOWEVER, this is not correct for Bogota, whose Philip V gold cobs didn't include the fleur-de-lis in the shield's center. We actually CAN, however, rule out a Philip V Bogota as a possibility because Bogota Philip V pieces didn't include any of Aragon's vertical bar(s) to the left of the Naples/Sicily crest, and also featured "X"s or stars in place of the Low Countries' diagonal bars and the Brabant lion. Clearly this piece isn't of that style.

-- The style of this piece does indeed appear to be Bogota mint during Philip IIII, as has been pointed out. In general, however, when attributing a cob (gold or silver) don't forget that homeland SPAIN produced many escudos issues at various mints, all of essentially the same style (shield/cross) as the Bogota and (later) Mexico issues. Of course, each has certain features that can be used to ID it...

Let's say we wanted to consider that Spain could be where this was from... It can't be a Philip V piece - as with Mexico, all of his homeland Spain gold cobs had the Bourbon fleur-de-lis escutcheon on the shield. It also can't be a Philip III, or (with a very few post-1640 exceptions) a Philip IIII either. Why? The Spain minted gold cobs (and silver) under these kings featured a Portugal escutcheon overlaying the shield. That leaves us with Philip II as the only likely option within the Spain issues... You can then compare several features in the shield which rule that out as well (e.g., the size of the shield sector containing Brabant's lion)


2. AUTHENTICITY: Forgetting that a "twin" has been found for this piece, let's analyze the "coin" itself:

-- This piece isn't a crude fantasy-type fake produced from a hand-engraved cast/die... Clearly, this was crafted by copying an actual coin... which, it turns out, is a Bogota Philip IIII 2 escudos.

-- Just eyeing it up, the metal to me "looks like" good, high purity gold, and this is backed up by it having tested as such.

-- The surfaces seem OK... or nothing jumps out, anyway. No completely damning pores or such, though we can't see the edge to look for a casting seam or remnants thereof.

-- The 6.9 gram weight is THE big tip-off here... Presumably, that's IN the bezel, which itself has to be about 2-2.5g... So let's be generous and say the coin alone is right at 5g - obviously still way under prescribed weight of 6.7 or so. So, it's either:

A) genuine, but clipped heavily... which it COULD be. The flan looks maybe a bit compact compared to other "Bogies"; or,

B) a quality replica done in high purity gold (> 90%)... though produced with a weight lower than the originals

Obviously, if the weight was true to the original, it would be less of a consideration and trickier to determine that this is a replica... Also, when you encounter a piece in a bezel (esp. if you relatively novice with these), it's a good idea to keep alert to the possibility that it's a replica... Of course, there are MANY original pieces mounted in bezels, but a lot of these quality replicas are produced for jewelry usage.

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

Yeah, I didn't check the weight. It looks like you found it. The coin perplexed me at first because the back looks very similar to a back I made about 10 years ago. The fleurs on the back I made were incorrect, I believe, and you couldn't see these very well which kind of threw the date for the front off. The ones with this type of concentric bendets are the easiest to make.

I hadn't realized they had made a copy with a double struck front on it like this. I think this throws a lot of people off. It also makes it hard to identify. The front and back of the cob may be from different coins- not that hard to do.

It is weird how the weight is always light on these. I found with the jewelry copies I used to make, even using 14kt gold, that my planchets always ended up thicker and heavier than the legit ones.

 

[divewrecks]

Great analysis RW! You're the man.....

Stan

 

[realeswatcher]

I hadn't realized they had made a copy with a double struck front on it like this. I think this throws a lot of people off. It also makes it hard to identify. The front and back of the cob may be from different coins- not that hard to do.

Some out there assume "they" only make copies of perfect-looking specimens, so those people won't really suspect an otherwise well-done piece with goofy looking detail. This is definitely not always the case... ESPECIALLY if you were doing it to pass them off fraudulently as real.

It is weird how the weight is always light on these. I found with the jewelry copies I used to make, even using 14kt gold, that my planchets always ended up thicker and heavier than the legit ones.

The light weight would make perfect sense, I would think... all the trapped air bubbles, right? Plus, if a seller is producing them in high-purity gold, you're OK with them being somewhat light - higher margins.

So in doing your own in 14kt, they came out thicker AND heavier... Relatively speaking, though (assuming diameter is correct), if they came out heavy, they must have been coming out REALLY thick, yes? In other words, relatively more "over" on the thickness than the weight, yes? Unless you were able to eliminate any air bubbles better than the original minting process ... OR, maybe alloyed with something denser than gold... but really, no metal you'd alloy with has higher density than gold, right?

 

[Diver_Down]

Great analysis RW! You're the man.....

Stan

I am in awe of RW's analysis. Not just on this one, but also his contributions @ colonial cob. The body of knowledge on T-Net is always great, but when RW chimes in, it is time to take out the pen and paper because school is in session.

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

It is hard to make a coin replica by casting that has an exact gram weight to the coin. Since I never really cared much about the weight, I always went for big planchets that would give a lot of detail on the coin. I thought also that having a wide planchet cavity helps make sure the gold flows throughout the mold (I have since found out that this is not the case.)

So the idea would be to make the coins heavier, and then subtract details around the edge to bring them down to weight. They may have made it intentionally light to save money and make sure it could not be passed off as real.

Here is the old style halves I used, using a really white-ish wax.

 

[Silver Searcher]

Can you tell me were the Gold originals struck with dies

SS

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Because your piece would be way light for a genuine piece (6.9g in bezel... a bezel that size will weigh 2-2.5g or a bit more, so the coin itself is way under prescribed weight of about 6.7g), I checked the website of an outfit that produces a lot of cob coin replicas, including replica gold cobs done in 24K gold. I found what I'm pretty certain is a match to your piece on one of his inventory pages... it's the piece to the left... compare this to yours rotated in the same manner:

I dont think this changes the replica ID but Barbwiregirl says the piece weighs 6.9 pennyweight not grams.

6.9 pennyweight (dwt) = 10.73 grams

 

[realeswatcher]

Because your piece would be way light for a genuine piece (6.9g in bezel... a bezel that size will weigh 2-2.5g or a bit more, so the coin itself is way under prescribed weight of about 6.7g), I checked the website of an outfit that produces a lot of cob coin replicas, including replica gold cobs done in 24K gold. I found what I'm pretty certain is a match to your piece on one of his inventory pages... it's the piece to the left... compare this to yours rotated in the same manner:

I dont think this changes the replica ID but Barbwiregirl says the piece weighs 6.9 pennyweight not grams.

6.9 pennyweight (dwt) = 10.73 grams

Either way, this piece definitely does appear to be a match to the replica offered on the website... But honestly, I wonder if maybe the jeweler did actually have the scale set to grams and didn't realize it - just takes the press of a button to change the mode.

An original 2 escudos (which this is definitely supposed to be) should weigh about 6.7g, 6.8g, give or take 0.1g. A 10.7g weight would either mean the bezel itself weighs as much as 4 grams (which is high for a simple border bezel, though I guess not impossible)... AND/OR the "coin" itself is heavy, maybe pushing 8 grams? Tangibly speaking, if this is 10.7g, and that $400 price shown on the website is up to date for current gold prices, he would just about break even on the bullion content alone, let alone manufacturing costs and turning a profit. That makes no sense.

As cuzcosquirrel wrote, it can be hard to get the weight perfectly accurate on casts... but you would think a professional concern would make sure to err on the low side for profit concerns? It would make no sense to incorporate MORE gold into this piece than the typical market for such a piece would probably demand... The average buyer of these is probably not going to be all that conscious of the actual gold content... so you can probably get away with giving them a 5.0g "coin" for about the same "market price" that a 6.8g replica would bring. And certainly, there would be no economic justification to make it OVERweight.

Whatever the case... there's definitely a market for a piece like this from people who don't want to go for $1200-1500 for an original, plus mounting costs. It does make things a little more dicey for the collectors of the originals...

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I agree it makes more sense to be 6.9 grams because the jeweler offered $380.
Here is her original post. Maybe she got it mixed up. She says shes a blonde.
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,411182.0.html

Great ID BTW.

 

[KEYSHUNTER]

you have coin ,its old ...why stamp the bezel 14k ??

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

you have coin ,its old ...why stamp the bezel 14k ??

I dont understand the question. Its not a coin and its not old. Its a modern jewelry piece. The bezel is 14K.