1783mo Ff Mexico 2r El Cazador

Very simply, Wonghinghi's piece is either:

-- An actual El Cazador piece that was highly polished ***OR
-- A recent (1990's up) cast replica thereof

It is NOT any kind of contemporary counterfeit, older cast... or from any other shipwreck. There was an enormous amount of 1783 Mexico 8R salvaged from this wreck... from market observation, it MUST have been the large majority of 1783 Mexico 8R made that year. No other wrecks have produced anything more than a trickle of this date. Without any doubt - any 1783 which have been mass marketed are ABSOLUTELY El Caz (or possibly casts thereof).

Relatedly, don't get caught up in the semantics/precise language used on the COA... The packaging on these sucker-bait sets isn't usually too precise. Pieces that are obviously El Cazador have often NOT been advertised as such, apparently so as not to oversaturate the market over the last 10+ years. Take for example those "America's First Silver Dollar" sets in the plastic case showing Washington crossing the Delaware... OBVIOUSLY El Cazador, yet they are vague about it (even incorrectly stating "Caribbean" rather than Gulf of Mexico... well, they kind of connect).

That said..... whether this piece and others like it could in fact be CAST FAKES/REPLICAS of El Caz pieces... another story. Certainly would have made a lot of sense when silver was under $10/oz... and given the nature of shipwreck coins (and especially, who would be buying these), very few people would notice.

Ok I want to throw in my Two Cents worth.
The Certificate in question, one of the Jerry Gordon generics, makes no mention of the Cazador, no mention that it applies to your coin and no mention of any wreck. It is as if I issued a certificate that stated US Morgan silver dollars were made of 90% silver and are all over 92 years old. What a pointless certificate. I could include it with any coin I want, real of fake and it would still be a true statement. Most, if not all, legitimate Cazador certificates reference the wreck, they were trying to capitalize on the romance and history of the wreck. The Cazador yielded a boatload (pardon the pun) of 8 reales dated 1783 and a spattering of other coins all dated all prior to 1784. The original coins were very poorly handled and exhibit signs of being tumbled, cleaned, polished and just about every other process that makes a coin collector cringe in pain. I was personally unaware of the melting/casting of the really bad coins but it had been done by others (be real careful of the jewelry coins at the Mel Fisher museum but at least they are identified as castings). Actually I do take issue with Swamperbob's comment about the Cazador coins depressing the market for shipwreck coins, the influx of new collectors caused an increase in the value of the other harder to locate coins that are in short supply (check out the El Lerri wreck off Matacumbe Florida, I only know of about 5 or 6 coins with actual certificates claiming providence to that wreck and they command really high prices, same with some of the other 1733 and 1715 fleet sites. Locating the mother of all commercialized wrecks, the Atocha, flooded the market with Atocha coins and drove the price of Margarita coins (sister ship lost in the same hurricane) through the roof.) There is a whole market out there of people that collect by certificate the way I collect by date and assayer. To each his own. Cazador coins are very interesting pieces of history, I own a few myself, including a few I need to examine that my son picked up at a small local coin show for $15 each about 10 years ago and see if they are castings (I never really paid any attention to the possibility of being fake, they are so ugly to start with)
One last thing to reiterate, the coin in the original posting is a really nice example of a Cazador coin other than the usual 8 reales. It's a keeper.

Now that is a marketing dream, very well done, beautifully presented with a nice cert. That is such a keeper. GR58 you got yourself a great deal on that coin, congratulations. Now if we can only get you addicted to Spanish Colonial Coins like some of the rest of us, we will have a new member of the cult.
Beautiful piece of history

I like coins .. I guess I just have to learn more about Spanish colonials ...




Pictures of this coing are at the start of this thread .. although I see now thaqt I post the reverse .. upside down

I guess I should have ask .. is this COA considered a good one.
I think everyone has said this coin is most likely one of the real ones.

The signature really catches my eye
Jay W Johnson, for the Franklin mint
36th direstor of the United states mint.

Sounds pretty offical to me, but curious that a US mint offical
putting his name on a Spanish/Mexico coin .. for the Franklin mint.

What do old U.S. Senators do when they retire ? They become high paid lobbyists. What do old Mint directors do when they retire ? They become highly paid " faces " for private mints in an effort to legitimize there offerings.

Any COA from a private mint is basically only worth " as far as we know, we sold these under the impression that these are real " , but for resale, a printed COA adds to the value.

I would be more assured by the NGC slab. Even though , as Bob has educated us many times, NGC has and apparently continues to slab counterfeits, most likely the salvage company turned over a hoard of these coins to NGC for slabbing and then to Franklin mint for marketing.

The ones that I have seen at auction go for about 30-$40 for the 2R and 50-$60 for the 8R. But those prices are just the slabs I've seen , haven't seen a boxed set like yours. And the only one as nice as yours that I have seen was an 8R for over $70

I paid @$100 for my set of 8R and 2R. And I though that was a deal at the time.

I have done the S.G. of my shipwrecked 8R two times separately by two different standards today.

The results are as follows:

i) S.G. 9.876 ---> corresponding to 63.26%Ag

ii) S.G. 9.836 ---> corresponding to 62.72%Ag

My system has an inherent deviation of about 5%Ag bias low.

Is it possible to have the S.G. of a Ag-Cu 8R silver coin drops after it had been immersed under sea water for over 150 years? Or can I use these data to tell the seller this coin is a modern forgery? Please help!