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Posted 03/20/2014 4:48 pm
Interesting edge shot... No, there isn't an obvious overlap, though with everything a bit mushy from wear, would be hard to discern a subtle overlap (where the alignment is almost exact).
One feature from that shot that reassures me about the piece are those striations (visible all the way to the left... on the left-side photo in the composite pic). What causes that exactly, don't know, but you see it on good pieces.
The lack of gold and platinum is odd though, assuming it's not test error. Uneducated thought - 1825 is obviously as late a colonial as you can get, and getting toward that period where they could/would remove those traces and where platinum turned into a precious metal. Is there no chance that this could be a very early instance of that? I know you guys have mentioned 1850 or so at a date for that; Potosi was right next to the mine, of course... maybe they had some modern scientific/engineering input there? John, do you guys have any test results for late Potosi (1824, 1825) in your research? If so, any differences noted with, say 1780ish Mexico?
The one thing I'll note... 1825 JL is a somewhat plentiful date. That's kind of curious for being the last colonial issue, especially comparing them to the Lima/Cuzco mintages of these late years (unless the loyalists in Potosi wanted to go out with a bang and make a statement of support?).
John, stupid aside - and I apologize as I've never gotten fully through those papers (L. Beck, etc.) you've posted discussing surface enrichment, etc., which may address this. I've kind of wondered about surface metallurgy of a coin... it is feasible that metals which are "softer" on the Möhs scale (umlaut, I think?) might actually wear away through circulation a bit more quickly than "harder" metals at the molecular level, leaving behind artificially higher ratios of those harder metals?
One feature from that shot that reassures me about the piece are those striations (visible all the way to the left... on the left-side photo in the composite pic). What causes that exactly, don't know, but you see it on good pieces.
The lack of gold and platinum is odd though, assuming it's not test error. Uneducated thought - 1825 is obviously as late a colonial as you can get, and getting toward that period where they could/would remove those traces and where platinum turned into a precious metal. Is there no chance that this could be a very early instance of that? I know you guys have mentioned 1850 or so at a date for that; Potosi was right next to the mine, of course... maybe they had some modern scientific/engineering input there? John, do you guys have any test results for late Potosi (1824, 1825) in your research? If so, any differences noted with, say 1780ish Mexico?
The one thing I'll note... 1825 JL is a somewhat plentiful date. That's kind of curious for being the last colonial issue, especially comparing them to the Lima/Cuzco mintages of these late years (unless the loyalists in Potosi wanted to go out with a bang and make a statement of support?).
John, stupid aside - and I apologize as I've never gotten fully through those papers (L. Beck, etc.) you've posted discussing surface enrichment, etc., which may address this. I've kind of wondered about surface metallurgy of a coin... it is feasible that metals which are "softer" on the Möhs scale (umlaut, I think?) might actually wear away through circulation a bit more quickly than "harder" metals at the molecular level, leaving behind artificially higher ratios of those harder metals?
