Bolivia 1740-P P real
This specimen was lot 821 in Sedwick Treasure Auction 38 (Winter Park, FL, November 2025), where it sold for $900. The catalog description[1] noted, "BOLIVIA, Potosí, cob 1 real Royal (galano), 1740 P, unique. Bold full interior details on a small, round flan that was shaved long ago (underweight) but was clearly created as a galano with uniform thickness and strike, the pillars slightly off-center and the cross slightly doubled, AVF with contrasting toning, holed to right of pillars, important as the first and only example we have seen or heard of." 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. This type was struck 1729-47 and superseded an earlier type (KM 28) which was 0.931 fine silver. 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. The SCWC lists assayers M and P for this year and Cayón adds an M/P/E.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 3.38 g, 0.917 fine silver, this specimen 2.86 grams.
Catalog reference: Cayón-8551 (assayer P), S-P48; KM-unl; Cal-unl (Type 80).
- Cayón, Adolfo, Clemente Cayón and Juan Cayón, Las Monedas Españolas, del Tremis al Euro: del 411 a Nuestros Dias, vol. 1, 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.
- Menzel, Sewall, Cobs, Pieces of Eight and Treasure Coins, New York: The American Numismatic Society, 2004.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- [1]Sedwick, Daniel Frank, Augi Garcia, Cori Sedwick Downing, Connor Falk and Sarah Sproles, Auction 38, World, U.S Coins and Paper Money, featuring the Jorge Ugaz Collection of Lima Silver Cob 2 Reales and the Darby Collection of Guatemala Silver Cobs, Winter Park, FL: Daniel Frank Sedwick LLC, 2025.
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