Bolivia 1749-P q real
This specimen was lot 44067 in Stack's Bowers ANA sale (Costa Mesa, CA, August 2021), where it sold for $120. The catalog description[1] noted, "BOLIVIA. Real, 1749-P Q. Potosi Mint. Ferdinand VI. PCGS FINE-15 Gold Shield. Two legible dates. Nearly full weight. While this is not listed as a rare date, the last offering of this date we can find was a salvaged example in Sedwick sale 14 (Winter Park, FL, October 2013, lot 1279)." The specimen shown is a 1749 cob one real from the Potosí mint in Bolivia. 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 This type was struck 1748-60 and superseded an earlier type (KM 28a) which names Philip V instead of Ferdinand VI. 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: 3.38 g, 0.917 fine silver, this specimen 3.30 g.
Catalog reference: Cayón-10276, KM-37; Cal-Type 32#213.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- 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.
- Menzel, Sewall, Cobs, Pieces of Eight and Treasure Coins, New York: The American Numismatic Society, 2004.
- [1]Orsini, Matt, Kyle Ponterio and Jeremy Bostwick, The August 2021 ANA sale: World and Ancient Coins, Costa Mesa, CA: Stack's Bowers LLC, 2021.
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