Bolivia 1724-P Y 2 reales
This specimen was lot 2885 in Stephen Album sale 45 (Santa Rosa, CA, January 2023), where it sold for $264. The catalog description[1] noted, "BOLIVIA: Felipe V, 1700-1746, AR cob 2 reales (1)724-P, assayer Y, 2 mintmarks, 2 assayers, 1 date, 'hexagonal' flan, fairly well struck with full cross, NGC graded AU50." The specimen shown is a 1726 cob two reales from the Potosí mint, struck during the brief reign of Philip V. The Potosí mint was the most prolific issuer of silver during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, nearly all of it cobs such as this. The other Latin American mints placed the date near the edge where it rarely struck up, whereas Potosi issues have the date smack in the middle, ensuring that the date would be legible even if the rest of the design was smeared. As a result, Bolivian cobs can be collected by date, unlike the other mints (Mexico, Lima, Guatemala). The Potosí mint was the last to abandon the manufacture of cobs, in 1773.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 6.77 g, 0.931 fine, .202 troy oz ASW, this specimen 6.68 g.
Catalog reference: Cayón-8758, KM-29.
- Cayón, Adolfo, Clemente Cayón and Juan Cayón, Las Monedas Españolas, del Tremis al Euro: del 411 a Nuestros Dias, 2 volumes, Madrid: Cayón-Jano S.L., 2005.
- Calicó, Xavier, Numismática Española: Catálogo General con Precios de Todas las Monedas Españolas Acuñadas desde Los Reyes Católicos Hasta Felipe VI, 1474 a 2020, Barcelona: Aureo & Calicó, 2019.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- Menzel, Sewall, Cobs, Pieces of Eight and Treasure Coins, New York: The American Numismatic Society, 2004.
- [1]Album, Stephen, Joseph Lang, Paul Montz, Michael Barry and Norman Douglas Nicol, Auction 45, Santa Rosa, CA: Stephen Album Rare Coins, Inc., 2022.
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