Spanish 8 Reales Cut. Used For Where? Help!

Who knows, it might be something as absurd as someone wanted to make a fanciful guitar pick and also wanted to featured the King's portrait. This kind of cut does not make any sense as it could have been cut in quarters to make temporary fraction coinage.

realeswatcher You say as was pointed out in the listing they were apparently from Oran. You also indicate that it was most often Potosi cobs that were cut down to "this weight standard".

I did not see any of that information because the listing has never been given. Can we all take a look at the original listing? What was the weight standard and how uniform are the coins?

Something really bothers me about such items coming from Oran. Oran is a city located on the Mediterranean in Algeria. During the 1700s and 1800s, it was under Muslim control. French intrusion into the area is of later date. These clips were made in all but one case, to preserve the image of Charles III. Yet images of people are not normally accepted by Islamic countries especially during those earlier years.

It all seems very speculative at this point that circulation in any Islamic nation would have been welcome. Better to melt the coins and restrike then into more standard coins.

Also because Potosi was mentioned, I wonder why the 8Rs are nearly all from Mexico City not Bolivia. Even some of the coins with no visible mint marks or assayer initials have portrait types that are clearly Mexican.

I am not yet sold on what these are.

To realeswatcher:
That's sounds reasonable.Therefore I thought all these coins are genuine. You have sparked me of recalling that Morocco has imitated the spainish 8r cob shape and produced local coinage.It is just the period of the portrait pillar coin. AH1188-1189 which is AD1774-1775.See image below.
Though it was found in Oran Algeria,I think I was used in Morocco in the period of Spain influence.
Forgive me for can't read french.

I have to disagree that these were made to imitate the cobs as there was no real need to do so. Again, my knowledge of Spanish colonial coinage is very limited so I can be very wrong.

From my understanding, the cobs were struck and cut to Weight Tolerance so that they could be exported as 'bullion'. As this was deemed to be too cumbersome, machine milled coinage took over and this became a standard. Agreed, there were times when smaller denominations were needed and they were cut in quarters or something that mathematically makes sense for trade purposes.

The real question is if these are indeed genuine and were used for commerce - isn't it absurd that it has taken more than 200 years for these to appear? Agreed, stranger things have occurred but this to me at best are attempts of making them into jewellery of some sort. That's also a huge assumption that they are genuine to start off with.

There was a previous comment along those lines... but that kind of assumes the 8R is being used AS the standard... In a case like this (if legit), the 8R are being co-opted for an entirely different standard.



The total weights of the groupings of (3) are given in the listings... generally averaging around that 15._ gram mark it seems. Two of the groups have pieces which are clearly a bit smaller (391351528832, 281895896806)... assuming they're genuine, perhaps whoever cut them was cheating a bit?



That's sort of why I'm tying these together... the cobs I refer to typically have 4, 5 cuts semi-evenly around... to where the remainder ends up centered (opposed to one big hack from one side, leaving something crooked-looking). The way these portraits are cut is somewhat reminiscent of that.



There clearly is an intended pattern with that... stupid thought, this is (again, if legit) simply crude ingot cutting here that we're dealing with, no counterstamping or similar, so not the most advanced operation. Maybe they just used the portait as a guideline for the cutting?

Then of course, just to be difficult, there was the oddball in 391351519850.



Who says it has?

I can say that I've noticed enough of the cobs - almost always out of the Old World, never coming out of South or Central America) in this oddball weight range (largely too heavy to have possibly been done as 4R - nobody cheats up!! - and certainly way too light to just be thieving a bit from an 8) with similar clipping style that there is must be a pattern to it... Yet, all you ever see is occasional vague references about use in Africa (that's even all Sedwick states of them...). When you see them from the Spaniards, they just say "recortada" and leave it at that. Curious that it doesn't occur to them that 15-16g is not anything that would make sense in the Spanish realm...

Perhaps it's no one has noticed because they just appear to be garden variety clipped down coins... and frankly, it may be such an obscure local standard that it doesn't matter. Surely if these were out of the Caribbean, collectors would get in a tizzy about them... but these are North African, so has anyone cared enough to research them? Spanish coinage certainly circulated in North Africa and the Levant/Ottoman lands, but you don't hear much about that...

From that older thread I had linked, here's what the Algerian metal detector guy came up with. All cobs... certainly some obvious clippings present:


I think maybe some consult with a France-based North African expert would be in order...

To sum up the facts as presented.

1. There are 20 examples of cut down Portrait 8Rs from one seller in France.
2. The weights are given by lot of 2 or 3 coins. The weights for three vary from a high of 48.78 grams to a low of 39.79 grams. Shapes are not identical so the weights will not be identical in groups.
3. The patina implies a single origin.
4. The designs appear to match genuine coins.
5. The cob examples referred to are more numerous and weights vary from 12.15 grams to 23.5 grams. Several match rather closely the weight of a 4 reales.

The presumptions or suppositions:
1. The coin came from Oran from a hoard.
2. They are genuine coins cut down at a time long ago.
3. They are cut to a North African standard.

Since the pieces lack any type of an authentication stamp - they can be readily created from culled genuine coins or silver counterfeits at any time. All that is needed is a method of aging to create an apparent patina.

These coins may be real or they may be a fantasy issue. Tests and data needed are:

Individual weights
Individual specific gravities
Edge photographs
XRF tests

Because these pieces are not marked in any way (other than being cut) they will be very difficult to authenticate. The tests needed may well be more expensive than any value attached to the coins themselves.

OK, found an example from 3 years back - pic below. Looks to be Potosi, 1790s. Certainly the same style of clipping... Very close to 4R weight in this case, which leads Hervera to call it as such, but again, since some pieces from the ebay grouping clearly range to a higher weight, you assume those higher weights most closely approximate the empirical standard (and that the lighter ones represent intentional undercutting). Those larger planchet Potosi 8R would be ideal to do this with, as the remainder cut could LOOK the same area-wise, yet have less silver.

Also, logically... for the milled coinage, if you were simply cutting fractional small denoms. based on the 8R as the standard, wouldn't you simply cut it in half as we did here?

"8 Reales. 13,46 grs. Recortada para circular como 4 Reales."
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1322531

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Then this one... only 12g., but perhaps? Very similar style... however it's a Mexico PILLAR 8R:
http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=576801