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THE NEW WORLD'S FIRST ASSAYED AND STAMPED COINAGE
An article about related items from the 17th
century. I don't know who wrote it. If you do, please tell
me.
The following group of cut and counterstamped pieces represent
the very first marked pieces of
legalized coinage in the New World. A brief overview of the little
known history of these pieces are asfollows.
Upon arrival in Hispaniola and Mexico the Spaniards encountered
the local Indians trading in the
necessities of life and the use of gold was restricted to ornaments.
The Spaniards immediately placed atax on the Indians and started taxing
the local Indian population in Hispaniola. Columbus was alsoauthorized
to start a mint in Hispaniola in 1497 on his second trip to the island.
No record exists to showthat he ever did start a mint making coinage.
They did however, make revenue tax discs to show theIndians had paid taxes.
The ornaments and tax revenue pieces existed mainly as crude sheets of
goldmetal beat out into irregular shapes. This was also true to some
extent in Mexico. In addition, Mexico had many artifacts from the
Aztecs which were seized and shipped back to Spain. The absolutely
insatiableappetite for gold in Spain was phenomenal. Spain prohibited
the use of gold in Hispaniola and stated they could use only Maravedi struck
in Spain (i.e. copper coins of no intrinsic value). These coins were
never issued in sufficient quantity for local commerce. Gold strips
and discs were being used in Mexico which were called "Tejos.” These
pieces were in use by the 1520s in Mexico, where the Spaniards were already
involved in fraud by mixing large amounts of copper into the gold and defrauding
the local population by making payments with these pieces of metal which
were called "Peso Oro de Tepuzque." The governments of Mexico and
of Spain tried in vain to regulate these "Tejos" with varying degrees of
failure. The Spaniards even went so far as to institute a duplicate system
of values for gold which was mined, Peso de Minas (which was 22 1/2 pure
gold), and the "Tejos" of low grade gold. All of this was done and
effected upon an Indian population that scarcely understood Spanish.
One does not have to wonder who was victimized in these circumstances.
The simultaneous use of Oro de Minas (good gold of at least 22 1/2 carats),
Peso de Oro in Polvo ( gold dust), Peso de Oro fundido y marcado (cast
gold, marked, etc), and silver with similar names and denominations led
to massive fraud throughout the colonies. Burzio furnishes many references
to all of the fraud, shortage of the King’s fifth being collected, and
absolute impossibility of consistent value being assigned to each.
It must be remembered that virtually nothing
has been written concerning these early attempts of
making a commercially viable monetary system. The reason has
been twofold. 1. None of these pieces were known in gold until the discovery
of the Tumbago wreck sold by Christie's in 1993 and these current pieces
found on the Dry Tortuga wreck, which are coins from the 1622 Atocha silver
fleet wreck. 2. None of the catalogers of these pieces ever went to the
trouble to properly catalogue and research them. That probably being
because the people doing the cataloging did not have the proper language
skills, and/or library to do the research. In almost every case these
pieces have been called cut off bits of bars, etc. See Christie's
Lot #84 (June 15, 1988), Christie's sale of the Tombago pieces (April 1993)
Lots 257 to 265 . Also similar silver lots by Dieter Gomy Giessener Munzhandlung
Munich auction catalogue #70 (November 19, 1994) Lots#1012,1013, and 1014.
The true name of these pieces are "Peso de Oro Ensayado"
or assayed gold pesos. These pieces were decreed by the Real Cedular
(Royal Decree) of October 28, 1586 by Phillip II. Assigning these
pieces a value of 13 1/4 Reales or 450 Maravedi. The gold had to
be 22 1/2 carats. This coinage, according to Burzio, was in use throughout
the Americas until the middle of the 16th Century, or until colonies could
replace them. This was one final attempt by the Spaniards to collect the
20% tax for the King of Spain and to stop fraud. Therefore,
all of this coinage had to carry part of the tax stamp and the carat stamp
where space permitted. It should be noted that these pieces do not
always carry the same carat as specified in the decree of Phillip
II.
These pieces, which, along with the Tumbago group
sold by Christie's presents the two largest
single offerings ever presented either privately or publicly.
This group from the Dry Tortuga wreck are definitely from the 1622 Plate
Fleet Wrecks, which included the Atocha, etc. I have personally examined
all of the coins and all conform to the coins of Phillip III or beginning
of Phillip IV. This wreck also yielded two different 1622 NR, 8 Reales
coins which were unknown until the Atocha was found. These pieces
were definitely the circulating gold medium of exchange circulating
in 1622. According to Burzio they continued to circulate until the
1700's when all were melted and made into Cob gold and/or round milled
coinage. These were pieces used in everyday commerce by the common
business man and/or laborer, and were the equivalent of the pieces
of 8 Escudos later struck and made famous as "pirate's gold," etc.
These coins are clearly the first legalized recognizable mediums of bullion
related exchange known to the New World. Each is a unique piece that
was exchanged for it's intrinsic value. The authors Burzio and Medina,
both liberally refer to these pieces but none were known to survive until
modern technology was able to salvage these pieces from the ocean's floor.
These coins were salvaged from a depth of 1500 feet. It can be said these
are truly the first stamped coinage of the New World with legal status
throughout the New World and Spain. Each piece being unique and very
rare, as these are less than 25 presently known to exist. No market
value has been firmly established to date. The only recorded sales
have realized prices up to 300 times the intrinsic value and even these
would appear to be reasonable, due to the rarity of the known pieces today.