Help To Identify Spanish Maravedis, Please...

Any chance it is a much earlier cornado?

Not an exact match, but many of the design elements are similar:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces131627.html

Thank you for the replies.

I am not certain on the mint, but I do see the "T" Spence mentions, so I think this is for Toledo? I am not entirely sure what the legend says at this point.

I thought this a maradevi because of where it was found and the temporal timeline of that site (circa 1565), but I think this could well be a cornado after looking at (@tdziemia) the provided link.

I wonder, could this be a late-Medieval counterfeit?

I'm also wondering if this might have made its way to the New World in the purse of one of Menendez's men.

I have been directed to a couple of books (in Spanish) on the maradevis, one of which is OOP (but I am told an updated edition is forthcoming in 2019).

I appreciate the help.

Good morning, tdziemia...

In the strictest sense, it is not an officially documented find. The person who recovered it was an avid metal detector hobbyist, and he spent around 40 years traveling the US and world to dig for artifacts. In the late 1970s to mid 1980s, he lived in St. Augustine, and he dug almost exclusively at Florida sites during those years. He was meticulous about where things were found, but he cared not as much for what the items were, and coins and buttons seemed to be of little interest to him (unless they were gold or silver).

I met him on a volunteer project in the late 1990s, and he offered to teach me the metal detecting side of site work (I spent all of my time in libraries and behind a magnifier on the conservation side). Shortly after, he actually started his own archaeological site survey business, which I believe he ran until he passed away.

A few years back, I was able to purchase his entire collection of early colonial Americas buttons. This included a lot of very early Spanish material from some of their first occupation sites such as Seloy, Ucita, St. Augustine, etc., buttons from wrecks that had washed ashore after large storms, etc. - if you can picture small filthy bags of buttons with sites scribbled on them in black marker.

So, I've spent the last few years meticulously documenting, measuring, and conserving these. I had a short article on buttons from the Menendez expedition to St. Augustine published not long ago. I am still in awe when I handle these buttons from the expeditions of DeSoto and Menendez, and it pleases me that people are beginning to understand that colonial history in the United States began in the 1520s and not the 1600s (Jamestown), as I was taught in school.

Along with the buttons, he sent a smaller bag of coins - maradevis - all from the St. Augustine area, a few of which were beach recoveries. I have tried over the past few years to learn more about them, as they are fascinating, but having no real reference material, I can do little better than to read the dates and sometimes the royal crest. Still, I am very fond of them, and I have begun to actively collect more examples when I see nice ones offered.

I've always been most curious about this one though because it is so very different from the others.

I have managed just this morning to acquire a reference book from Spain. I'm hoping this and some of the others might be shown, or at least some of the markings so that I may get a little more info.

I would not be displeased to learn that this was a 14th/15th century forgery, to be honest.

@maravedis, thank you for the background. What a great personal history!

The reason I posed the question is because I ran across this statement about a 1540s Spanish coin found in an organized dig at Jamestown:
These 16th century coins from the early European colonization are extremely rare in North American archaeological contexts.
https://historicjamestowne.org/sele...ish-coins-2/

Jamestown's site leaves no doubt that the coin was deposited by a resident, rather than washed up from a shipwreck. It's also interesting that this coin would have been at least 65 years old when dropped by someone at Jamestown. Which leads me to believe it's certainly possible for a 15th century Spanish coin to have been in the pocket of a mid-1500s St. Augustine resident.

If you want concrete (catalog) attributions of any other coins, it's likely they can be provided here by forum members who have the reference materials and expertise (I have neither ... but can at least manage a quick search in an online database like Numista).

@thq, that is super detective work! I would not have recognized it from the Numista listing:https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces145369.html
Reverse legends are very supportive, as we can clearly see "...neS Dei gr .. " from 3:00 to 10:00 around the castle.

@maravedis, if the experts here agree this is the best attribution, you've got a pretty sweet find there: a pre-Columbian coin in post-Columbian North America.

(Time for another publication )

I've spent several minutes comparing @thq's identification to the coin in hand, and I think (s)he has it exactly (thank you again).

Does anyone know what the obverse and reverse legends read originally?

I've done a Google image search looking for the same coin, but the few I found were in a little worse condition and were not readable.

I have no reference material for this coin, and so I cannot look it up.

Thank you...

Thank you. I will check these against this coin.

I have just purchased the other maravedis (Austrias) book by this author; I plan to purchase this one (Borbones) also, eventually.