Thick silver? cob

[Tuberale]

Yet another cob piece.

I think this is silver, almost black, about twice the thickness of the dime and larger than a nickel, but smaller than a quarter. Only the raised areas are easy to see. Appears to have numbers 705 or 702 on it near the bottom.

Photo silver3b appears to show an upside-down R, an 8 on its side, part of a castle? at the bottom, separated from the 8 and R by a solid line.

Any help appreciated. I know nothing about cob coins.

 

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[realeswatcher]

Tuber, all of the pieces you posted (in 9, individual threads... not sure that was necessary) are various (copper) Maravedis denominations/styles, all minted in homeland Spain (not the colonies). None of them are silver Reales. If you poke around the maravedis.net, you should be able to identify some/most of them. If you're wondering, we're dealing with lower-grade, common pieces here, valued accordingly (a buck to a few bucks apiece).

Not that it matters much in terms of the actual coins... However, while not out of the realm of possibility that these were found in ex-Spanish colonial California, it's more likely that they were dug from hoards in Spain. Such hoard finds appear by the dozen or even hundreds on eBay regularly (search something like "pirate cobs", "maravedis cobs", etc.) in various states of conservation.

Regarding cleaning... An acetone bath simply washes off any organic dirt, solvents, etc... definitely something you'd do before dipping and stripping in muriatic acid (aka HCl), especially if one has no familiarity with how to use HCl. Interestingly, the acetone seemed to pull the toning right off that first piece you posted... this might suggest that the coin actually had been stripped of its tone during its post-dig cleaning, and then retoned...

FYI: The multiple striking seen on some are revaluation counterstamps, typical on these...

 

[Tuberale]

I think had you seen the 5 dirt-drenched Q-tips I applied the acetone to that coin, you would not say it had been cleaned before.

 

[realeswatcher]

Is the picture of the 1625 post-cleaning, where it looks to have something of a brassy color in terms of how dark it is, accurate? Acetone simply won't pull off old patina in that manner...

FYI - the section on the maravedis.net site to explore is "Los Austrias" (the Austrian-based Habsburg dynasty), which reigned from a bit after 1500 through 1700. Just about all of the pieces you've posted come from that time frame.

http://maravedis.net/austrias.html

 

[Tuberale]

Photos in the original thread were immediately after cleaning. True color I would represent as copper, but with something of a mercury-like wash, which quickly reverted back to the dull brass color.

Went to the website you suggested. While I saw coins similar to what I have on both obverse and reverse, none seemed to match the exact obverse/reverse I have. So either these are from a different time frame or were not maravedis represented during los Austrias era. Also, my coins seem to be much cruder than the ones represented on the website mentioned. Almost none of the coins I posted photos on have complete rims, for example, while the website shows coins with very close to complete rims only.