8-Reales 'Bust' - Zs 1819-Ag / 1821-Rg :: GA 1814-Mr

Nice pictures.

All three coins are War Time issues. These are the MOST difficult coins of the Portrait series to diagnose. Mints during the war years were operated far differently than at any other point in time and "normal" procedures went out the window. For that reason, the irregularities in die manufacture and striking cause many "experts" to disagree as to authenticity of coins made at this time.

During the war there were shortcuts taken. That is known for certain. Planchets were irregular and debased coins were made and issued officially. So most of the "normal tests" provide only clues to authenticity. The real problem is in inconsistency seen in quality. During 1819 there were radically different versions issued by the Zacatecas mint for example. In 1820 and 1821 most mints start to produce more "normal" looking coins so the usual tests are far more useful.

Several of my friends tend to call ANYTHING original if it is struck in silver above 0.700 fine, but I am not so certain. Obviously a coin made of Sheffield plate with a copper core is a forgery but after that there is very little consensus on which are real and not.

I rely primarily on what I have learned from two books when looking at coins made in this era - Riddell (1845) and Calbeto (1970). Neither is recently published so modern forgeries are not listed in either. I also check Coronado's book on forgery. He listed "contemporary" forgeries but the book dates to 2000 so you have to trust his judgement.

So diagnosing this era is rather uncertain.

The easiest is the 1821 Zs - it is a known counterfeit. I have several copies. The planchets appear to be cast and the coin is struck in fine silver. The dies used were transfer copied from an original. Those facts point me to the 1880's or 1890's as the likely date of manufacture. I personally classify the coin as a "Boston" type. A silver coin made full weight for use in the China trade when Bustman Dollars were the preferred medium of trade.

The first edge photo of the 1821 captures perfectly the WAVE seen in the edge detail on certain counterfeit 8R coins made in the 1880's. The fact it is a transfer die can be demonstrated by looking at some of the letters. Look at the F in the King's name - the central cross bar is recut - likely because the transfer was weak. Look at the E's especially the one in Ferdin - you can clearly see a flat gouge was used to deepen some of the letter. But on the obverse die (shield side) the gouge was NOT used.

Having said that - I know many dealers and collectors who treat this particular coin as REAL. The price tends to be identical because of this "uncertainty" on their part. However, I am certain it was NOT made in 1821. Riddell lists a very similar die pair for 1822 Zs which was low grade. The primary diagnostic for me is the MISSING mouth. Even high grade strikes of this coin have NO mouth. I know of no other real 8R where the King has no mouth.

The 1814 Guadalajara is a disputed coin I have seen many times. I believe it was not made officially in a Mexican mint but I have friends who are equally expert who insist it is a real coin. Someone in this case must have felt it was fake because of the scratches. Many early dealers intentionally defaced forgeries to eliminate their value as collectibles. Sometimes they drilled holes in them. This is one case, where it would have been better not to do it. I believe the only way to settle the argument once and for all is to run a series of XRF tests on a range of coins from each mint to determine normal trace contaminants seen in the alloys. Modern metals tend to be purer and some of the trace contaminants could prove the coins date from a earlier time - but the test is unlikely to eliminate all modern forgeries because some forgers melt old coins to make their planchets. I would check the SG here because the color looks brassy.

The 1819 I believe is a real coin. For many years, I believed it was counterfeit because I own a copy made of debased silver that is outside the allowable weight range. But in the past 10 years, I have seen several using identical or nearly identical dies which were correct in SG and weight. The die work is crude for the mint but many 1819 issues are in fact crude. This changed quickly so that in 1821 Zacatecas produced the highest quality coins of all the branch mints.

fireandice556 I have read similar things about Zacatecas coins. But it was not so much the silver as the contaminants that were of interest. I have had several early (pre 1835) Zs 8Rs examined with XRF and they all contain Gold. One coin had just about 1% gold in it, but I have heard of even more gold in other test examples. The early Zs refining operation did not take the trace of gold out of the ore before coining it - so it was lucretive to melt and refine early dated Zs 8Rs to get the gold. It is likely one factor in why the earlier years are scarce compared to the 1835 and later dates which are super common.

One percent may not seem like much but if you melt 100 ounces of 8Rs you could produce one ounce of GOLD and 99 ounces of Silver - a handsome profit at certain times. With gold at $1700, a one percent coin as about $7.60 worth of gold in it.

Makes you think a bit about bullion value for early 8Rs.