Nice to meet a new collector of 8R coins.
The peninsular issues you show an interest in are much harder to locate than the colonial types. This was because not only were fewer made originally but also because the locally made coins (European mints) were not accepted worldwide as
Trade dollars. In addition few of the issues dated before 1809 survived due to Spanish revaluation of the reale.
The early works of the US mint are interesting to read about with regard to the reliability of the various mints. The Mexico City mint made millions of 8Rs each year and they were consistent in average assay. In fact on world markets the coins of Charles III and Charles IV often carried a premium value (highest being in mainland China). The peninsular issues carried a lower premium than the Mo issues in most cases but these coins were still far superior to the revalued issues of Ferdinand VII. US mint assay results for Mexico yielded 898 fine and for Spain 900 fine. Standard for the issue was 903 but that was rarely met. Remember these are average figures - so individual assays and weight varied more for peninsular coinage than did Mexico city issues.
The China premium which reached 20% by 1820 caused some countries like England to embark on large scale forgery of the Mexican 8R in 1820. In 1835 tests done at
The Royal Mint showed that the UK issues were 850 fine silver and no less. They competed with lower assay forgeries made in China itself which rarely met 800 fine. It was at that time (1835) that the British encouraged the Chinese schroffs to adopt specific gravity testing. The scales available at that time could not detect the English shortage of 5% but could detect a 10% shortfall. This test eliminated the 800 fine and lower coins. This worked to the benefit of the UK they did not have to worry about accepting any other fakes in trade.
The reason England started making the silver counterfeits was that the UK had a balance of payments defecit to China of about 20 million pounds a year. The 20% premium helped offset that debt until such time as the opium wars allowed England to sell opium to China with no restrictions (in 1850).
The US entered into the same production of Mexican 8Rs some time after 1873 (after the mint act of 1873 and the impact of the Comstock silver lode in Nevada. This production continued until sometime shortly after 1930. Peak production occurred in the period 1893 to 1895.
The Manual of Silver and gold coins by Eckfeld and DuBois from 1842 is available as a PDF file from Google books. On pages 117 to 122, this book gives some interesting facts about Spanish 8Rs (the Mexican 8Rs are discussed on pages 77 to 85). By 1842 Spanish silver coinage was of minimal impact worldwide. Peninsular coins were almost unknown in the US in 1842. The reason most Peninsular 8Rs of the type you illustrate were removed from circulation and melted was that during the reign of Ferdinand VII the standard used for circulation changed by 20 percent from 8 reales to a dollar to 10 reales making the older 8Rs of Charles III more valuable as silver than as current coins.
Good hunting in your search. Remember at the early stages of your search you need to do some serious research - otherwise you are likely to discover Numismatic Forgeries more often than not.
Posted 11/23/2018 07:55 am
