1686-L.r. Peru 8 Reales PCGS VF-30 ... And Fake ...

I notice it's still listed though....

Bid is up to 443.88 at this point:

Questions and answers about this item

Q: I'm really interested in bidding on this coin. I've never seen one with such detail. I would like to know if you can tell me how much a piece like this retails for? Thank you,

A: It is difficult to say. I can find no record of an example of this coin selling anywhere ever. The world coin catalog does not give a price for a piece graded this high. It may be that this is the best in exixtance

Dec 03, 2011

It's the 3rd time I was able to see a counterfeit coin certified by PCGS.
Alarming to note that these 3rd party coin grading companies does have unqualified persons grading coins they are not familiar with... or it might be even worse... these people do it on purpose of proliferating counterfeit through legal means
I wonder what will Bob will note on this ...

Interesting coin - the value of this fake is far less than the bid. IT IS NOT A CONTEMPORARY COUNTERFEIT. That is simple wishful thinking and is about as likely to be correct as entertaining that this coin is real.

This coin had to be produced in the 1900's probably the latter half.

Well, the auction has been pulled by ebay...

It's definitely not a "contemporary counterfeit", but it's not particularly modern, either... On our Colonial Cobs forum, Carlos Jara (who has made a name for himself with his research on some fairly unresearched topics in Latin American numismatics and is generally "in the know" on Spanish realm numismatics) stated that a specimen of this fake can actually be traced back to the 1880's. This echoes what the Cayon auction indicated... Now, that's still well after the time where any coin of this design was used, so this almost certainly was never intended to be circulating fake money. Note also that even at the time when the subject of the fake was being made, this really isn't even a type that would have been targeted for that (few people would have even been exposed to Royals).

So then, does that mean its purpose was as a numismatic forgery/replica/imitation? Were they even executing numismatic fakes in the 1800's? You would think the hobby wasn't advanced enough yet...

Of note, Cayon also speculated in their auction description that it could be an Indian fake... that really doesn't seem to make sense. Not crude enough, how would the indigenous tribes even know about royals, etc. It is rather well done... so where DID it come from?

That pondering is another topic... The point is that piece is clearly recognizable to anyone moderately knowledgeable in this arena as NOT original.

At realeswatcher request, I am reposting here what I posted on the same topic in Collector's Universe. Regards to all:

"Hello to all. I registered in this forum to post a few thoughts on this interesting piece.

Re. its origin, I think that it is a "numismatic" forgery (meaning a modern copy made for collectors), made in Europe in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

A few of these "numismatic" forgeries were present in the Fonrobert sale, held in 1878, showing that forgers were at work at that time. Furthermore, even fantasies (meaning invented coins made for collectors) of European origin made for collectors of Latin American material can undoubtedly be traced to a European origin, a case in point being the Orelie Antoine 1 Peso coins, all produced starting in the late 1890's (and later than 1874, which is the date they show). Another modern copy produced at that time is the imitation of the Santo Domingo Charles & Johanna 10 Reales, a plaster cast of which exists in the ANS.

In the particular field of the cob coins, the old South American collectors favoured the fully round ones "royals" over the regular ones (the latter referred to as "barbaric" in the old Jacques Schulman catalogs) creating the demand for this kind of replicas.

As posted earlier, a specimen of this replica 1686 Lima 8 Reales can be traced to the 1880's. It is the Oscar Salbach specimen (collection sold by J. Schulman in 1911, but the original Salbach personal catalog-ledger shows a acquisition date of before 1890).

It is a different coin than this one, showing that a die was specifically made to strike these coins (which are struck, not cast). Furthermore, and this has not been mentioned yet, the Salbach piece was overstruck over an 8 Reales piece that had a "cadeneta" edge design (meaning the rectangle-and-circle design found on the bust silver coins struck after the pillar series). This alone precludes the possibility of the present piece being an original mint product. Other telling factors, such as the wrong punches for the lions castles, and letters can also be pointed out.

It would be interesting to see whether this present coin also shows that same edge design.

Regards to all.


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Carlos Jara
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Many of asked about a resolution to this face 8 reales. About 2 weeks ago, we settled up with PCGS for a reasonably negotiated amount of money and the coin back. The coin is now in the ownership of the previous owner.

Tony