KM # For This Thaler

Ah, very nice. Thanks for the scans! Out of curiosity, which grading company slabbed that?

hmm interesting. Not a bad way to store coins. Well, thanks for all of the info and the pics. One last question for you though: for how long have you been collecting Thalers?

I started off on US coins a little over 10 years ago. I dabbled in a little of everything US, and tried to collect what circulated in the American colonies. This is how I got my first 8 reales around 2001. I bought a couple of other 8's, but soon thereafter I started to feel a bit frustrated with US coins. Something just seemed odd about silver dollars that have mintages in the tens of millions having such large price tags. My collecting focus shifted to foreign coins. So now I just buy whatever strikes my fancy when I visit my local dealer or go to an occasional show, but there is a hierarchy to what I collect in that I am more serious about collecting certain KM types of coins over others. 8's have remained at the head of that ever since. I highly recommend venturing into 8 Reales since they were coins of the entire world due to the breadth of their circulation.

many of My 8s have been picked up at my local coin shop, which in all fairness is known as a major coin entrepot in these parts. A lot of dealers at shows are rather eager to display them since they do sell fairly well in the US (for a foreign coin) since they did circulate heavily in the colonies. Their value in VF really varies based upon mint. Coins struck in Mexico city, for example, tend to run at about $40-50 in VF. If you are looking for coins from other Spanish colonial mints, prepare to pay more. More common dates from Chile and Guatemala run for at least $100 in VF. 8's were minted in Colombia between 1810 and 1816, and they run for at least $2,000 in VF. The plot really thickens if one wants to also collect pre-milled coinage (AKA cobs) and milled 8's struck in Spain during the 18th and early 19th century. Cobs are just so hard to collect by date due to how crudely they were struck, and 8's made in Spain look totally different from those of the colonies and are quite rare. As Swamperbob and others have always pointed out, 8's are a dangerous game to play due to the fact that they are one of the most commonly counterfeited coins in China. When I went to a coin show in Barcelona, Spain a few months back, I saw so many counterfeits. One really has to know their stuff...and probably never buy 8's off of ebay in order to not get cheated.

Interesting how these crowns resemble each other across geographies during that era.

Very nice - I may look for one for my collections. Seems very much in the same family as Thalers. Only challenge is to brush up on history. I keep digging deeper and deeper into the Habsburgs while this can open a new world to study. Thanks again.

Nice talers gentlemen.

Zohar - here he is a few years earlier.

wcg- Thanks. That is a nice one too!