Stevie Beatz Welcome to the forum and the world of 8 reales.
It is slightly difficult to see the details of the coin, however from the edge photographs, I would suspect that the coin is a "restrike" made for the China Trade between 1820 and 1930. The wide range of manufacturing dates (110 years) is because there were several countries involved in this silver trade and that until the Chinese demonetized the old Carolus dollars (during the early 1930s) there was a substantial premium paid for these old dollars by silk and tea traders in inland China.
Several of the clues seen on this edge are documented in my book and elsewhere on this forum. So I will not list them.
To assign a closer date of manufacture to your coin a couple scientific tests are in order. First an accurate test of density should be done. The restrikes made in England were normally about 10% short in assay or 85% silver. These coins were produced up to about 1850 but in reduced numbers after the first Opium War. There were also locally made Chinese counterfeits circulating along side the English copies which were reported as being 80% silver or slightly less as a result of tests by
The Royal Mint in 1826. The trade in lower than 85% silver copies was stopped about 1835 when the Chinese adopted Specific Gravity testing at the request of British traders.
Coins that have the correct specific gravity or higher are usually from the second large emission of "restrikes" produced in the US after 1870. These coins were produced at several US locations with at least indirect support of the federal government. By that time, the US had discovered and opened the big silver mines in Nevada. This new silver source actually drove down world silver prices and caused the US to adopt the gold standard. The token value
Trade dollar was not successful in China, but the Carolus dollars still brought over a 25% premium over silver value. That enticement was adequate to cover all costs of production and shipment with a large profit left over.
Since I wrote my book I have proven that XRF testing of 8 reales is essential in the identification of genuine Mexican made 8Rs and US made replicas.
All coins produced from native Mexican silver before 1890 MUST have a small trace contamination of gold present in the silver over 400 ppm as an absolute minimum. It was because the refining technology used in Mexico at that time could not create silver much better than 99.9% pure on an industrial level. Making purer silver was simply too costly for the mints to use on a large scale.
So as a screening test for all 8Rs I recommend a test with a handheld XRF gun of recent vintage. These can test for the presence of gold at a level that is adequate to detect a coin that was NOT made in Mexico before 1890. Most of the XRF guns are accurate to the 4th decimal place. So any coin with less than 0.004 gold is most likely a restrike.
I have tested hundreds of 8Rs with this method and the number of "restrikes" is very high. I had developed the visual characteristics before the advent of easily accessible and cheap XRF tests. But the tests have proven the visual indicators to be rather accurate.
Posted 07/01/2020 4:37 pm
to CCF.
