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 Replies: 11 / Views: 2,429 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
685 Posts |
Started going through the Mexico 1/2 Reals. Acetone soak, rinse, rinse, binocular microscope, all the references. Found some Gilboy unlisted and will probably post those. Swamper Bob challenged me to find a matching die pair. Quite a challenge. Anyway this coin caught my eye. Weird color, crud, some pointed denticles, weight 1.58 gm. What do you think?   |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1666 Posts |
It's a bit too light considering there is no apparent wear. Also that lip around some parts of the rim is odd.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1757 Posts |
What can you tell me of the upside down mintmark and assayer? - Gurney is busy now FINALLY submitting his book to the American Numismatic Society to start its review and eventual publication. John Lorenzo United States |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
865 Posts |
Too many details that aren't right about this coin.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1801 Posts |
All the Mo 1772 portrait coins have the assayer and mint mark upside down.
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Pillar of the Community
France
1591 Posts |
colonialjohn : that's excellent news \o/
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1211 Posts |
I recently dug a half real with a similar date. My coin looks almost exactly like yours. IMO, it is suffering from (possibly) hundreds of years of environmental damage. It turns coins like this almost a purple brown and very grainy.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1757 Posts |
Yep - JF - its real - BTW did XRF testing of these issues awhile ago - of course no hint of these upside mintmark or assayer pieces of any denomination being contemporary counterfeits - just good old Mexico City mint errors ... no doubt.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
865 Posts |
Learn something new everyday. I would have passed on it because of the upside down mm/assayer, but now I know better.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1962 Posts |
Know thy coins...  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
685 Posts |
The 1772 FM seem to always have the inverted Mo and assayer FM. 1772 assayer FF is "normal" orientation. Interesting that my 1772 FM and 1772 FF both weigh 1.53 gm.
OK pull out the Ouija board, but four out of the last 62 1/2 reals. weighted out at 1.53 gm. I heard or read that Mexico under weighted the minors and mint employees were paid with these coins.
There is a guy in OC who is doing some kind of weight statistical analyses of all the Reales to whom I will send these numbers.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1962 Posts |
Secretly shorting the pocket change (as opposed to large value coinage which would be scrutinized more carefully) isn't the craziest idea; I've seen stories like that occasionally regarding different types of coinage.
Yeah, it would be interesting to see the results of a meta-analysis like what you mentioned. I've never noticed any particularly obvious trends of weights varying greatly from the prescribed on "normal" portrait colonial reales (aside from pieces like Lima/Cuzco late colonial pieces, Mex. branch mint portraits, etc.) but I'm sure some exist. Funny, I do recall seeing a nice Santiago portrait 8R in one of this past month's auctions (I forget which one/what year) with a curiously high weight - think it was 27.5_ grams, up from prescribed 27.07.
I will say that speaking of half reales, I kind of suspect that they lose more mass for the same amount of apparent wear as compared to, say, the 8 reales. Just eyeballing it, the half Rs strike me as having a larger diameter to thickness ratio (i.e., "wide, thin planchets") than most 8R... as such, I suspect that an XF half real has lost a larger percentage of its mass than an XF 8R. More surface area to be held/touched... Am I insane with that?
Aside from that, the weights you find are obviously dependent on wear and any corrosion present. The original piece you showed has near full detail under there, but clearly lost some surface to the ground, so it's not shocking to see what might seem like a slightly low weight.
One more thought... I don't how good your scale is, but I think most cheapo Chinese scales aren't great at handling such a low weight level. When I weigh very small pieces, I try to place a few brand new nickels or something like that (that's going to have a weight almost exactly at what's prescribed) on the scale and just account for the difference.
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Replies: 11 / Views: 2,429 |
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Posted 01/30/2014 12:20 am
