2 Mexicana 8 Reales 1 Fake 1 ?

More pics.

When we published Gurney's GNL book and examined around 1500 or so CCC8R's maybe several hundred were analyzed by a high end bench top vacuum type XRF device. I did ask Gurney to search and send any CCC8R in his collection that he thought might be of German Silver. So from this thought and population we found ONLY around a dozen CCC8Rs that were confirmed as German Silver (very very few). Unlike Kleeberg CCC2Rs where this alloy is common. So I deduced that Gurney's CCC8Rs were all (in general) were made earlier than 1830 for Class I types even with the later monarch Ferdinand VII or to be specific probably pre-1830. German Silver in general did not reach England till around 1830/1835 from China to a point where it could be manufactured and released. Realize the monarchs (Carolus III, IV & Ferdinand VII) do not really suggest anything for their probable production dates but that most Class I's suggest STRONGLY an early 19thC production period due to this German Silver alloy situation.

So for Cap and Rays we can expect German Silver to be more common as we also see this in the Davignon U.S. Bust Halves where German silver is the most common alloy found and interestingly for Kleeberg CCC 2R's with the same monarchs (Carolus III,IV & Ferdinand VII) we do see German silver much more frequently than the 8Rs so we suggest these were made longer or later into the late 1830/1840's but also were produced during the reign of these monarchs. German Silver has some slightly different definitions but its generally considered Cu, Ni (18-22%) and Zn (15-20%).

Its unfortunate that the second Gurney book will probably not come to pass as this was his main core collection of Cap and Ray CCC 8Rs. We chose the Portraits as this universe of CCCs was much SMALLER than the Cap and Rays. JPL