Thoughts On This Pillar 8 Reales?

All great points. I might be kidding myself, but I'm still expecting some level of consistency from TPG's :)

@realeswatcher - I would have to liquidate most of my collection to have that kind of spending power. It's a fantastic looking example, though!

@Westwood Arms - no worries about posting off-topic from my end, especially if it stimulates further discussion about coins :)

@jfransch - do you have a link to the pics of the 2 1733MXF in your collection? I guess a comprehensive die study on those is not possible due to how hard it is to find examples of this variety?

Since the 1733 varieties are such desirable rarities (the most common Mo-MF is only "semi-rare"), they tend to be featured in auctions more often, making for a better than normal accounting of them. They is especially true if you check out the various 1733 Fleet, and more recently Rooswijk offerings. First, you have the pieces from "jfransch" (I think they've been posted in a thread at some point?)... The Ponterio Rooswijk catalog from April 2006 alone shows pics of (15) different 1733-dated pillar 8R, incl. (2) of the MX-MF and an Mo-F; Sedwick #5 has (2) of the MX-F and (2) Mo-F from the 1733 Fleet; Sedwick #6 has (3) Mo-F from the 1733 Fleet and the Rooswijk; etc. Make sure to look through all the 1733 Fleet and Rooswijk material in the Sedwick auctions, and also obviously search Ponterio, Goldberg, Heritage, etc.


EDIT - Started looking around a bit RE: the 1733 pillar 8R. Came back across this... its older brother. Gary comes up with some good material, and his photos give a good view (from several angles) of what a 1732 pillar 8R should be like:

colonialcobs.com/forum/index.php?topic=169

Also, forgot to mention that along with the pillar in the original post that I won in the Ponterio sale, I also picked-up a nice raw 1763/2 MF pillar from Mike Dunigan at the show. Mike has some great looking coins, but his insistence on keeping most of his silver raw does result in some developing pvc and other spots of contamination. The pillar I picked-up had a few small green spots on the reverse and I submitted it to NCS at the show, asking to do a spot conservation and not touching the light pleasant toning. Got an update from them today that they were able to remove the PVC and not mess with the rest of the coin and that NGC assigned it an AU58 grade, which I completely agree with (just a hint of rub on the high points and very lustrous).

I'll post some pics when I get it back from them sometime next week.

Mathieu, I did not get a chance to photograph after buying, but I should be able to notice any differences.

Realeswatcher, I didn't realize the 3/2 MF was a rare one. I thought it was the other assayer combination for that year that was rare - MM.

NGC posted their horrible slab images on the certificate page, so here's a quick teaser before I receive it and have time to image it properly :)

http://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/C...=3564998-001




Looking at the NGC certificate photo of the reverse, it appears they spot treated it well and there isn't discoloration around the bottom lion and castle where pvc was.





I HATE when they do that. I had a few coins come back with a blast-white look that made me turn around and sell them.

I did the express submission. They got it through pretty fast.




Yeah, Mike is a great guy but his insistance on using soft flips is driving me nuts. I saw a few pieces that were already developing spots.

If you want to start a die study on the 1733 coins, let me know. I will bring home mine and post them. I have at least 2 dies for the MXF and multiple coins from each die. I can check the MoF coins, I have several examples but never paid as much attention to the dies. I would be interested in seeing what other dies are out there.
In regards to the hoard of 1754 coins that came out, does anyone know how many, if any, of the coins were 1754MoMM crowns alike? Can someone who is a member of NGC check the population and see if there were any?
In regards to Mike Dunigan and his soft flips, with the beautiful coins he has he can store them any way he wants, priviledge of ownership. Most of the coins I have bought from him arrived in a mylar sleeve inside the soft flip so no concern about PVC.

Thanks for finding the old post. I have a second die for that date/assayer as well but if no one wants to start a die study, no need for me to raid the SDB.
I do not believe Fisher ever found any 1732 MoMF coins. He found a scattering of 1732 MoF and various 1733 coins but Mel was never a big player in the 1733 wrecks. He came down to the keys sites late after working the 1715 sites for RealEight and by that time was starting to fixate on the Atocha. Bob Weller worked the 1733 wrecks extensively and found 1732MoF, 1733MXF, 1733MoMF and some spectacular MXMF coins. Stefan Sykora found a large group of 1773 coins in the Coffins Patch area, (1733 wreck, ship unknown). His grouping contained a mix of MoF and MXF but I don't believe he had any of the elusive MXMF coins. His coins were carefully conserved by electrolysis and some of his nicer coins from the center of the clumps have blast white perfect surfaces where there was no heavy corrosion and demonstrate the beautiful Unc condition the coins must have been in when the ship went down.
I personally think all the 1732MoMF coins are fakes made to look like salvage coins to lend "credibility" to the fantasy date/assayer. With that said I have sent word to Eugene Lyons to ask if he can personally verify knowing of any havng been found. I will let the forum know what I find out.

After a week of being lost in the US Post system somewhere between Florida and New York, I finally received the 1763/2 and had a chance to image it. Very pleased with the work NCS did in removing the verdigris spots on the reverse.