Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
The first coins produced at the Mexico mint should not be called "cobs." That is what I've read.
As you probably know, the word "cob" that we use so often to refer to old Spanish coins, is said to derive from the Spanish phrase "cabo de barra," commonly translated as "end of the bar." The image suggested is that of planchets being sliced off the end of a silver loaf like a slice of bread, however, as Sedwick suggests in an article entitled Straps for Cash, that image is misleading.
A photo that appeared in an auctioned lot several years ago showed an uncut silver strap and also eight cobs with straight ends that could be placed end to end to show how they were derived from a single strap.
A strap of silver, typically one to two inches wide and of the appropriate weight, was poured, as shown in the above illustration. The center point was found, and the strap was cut in half. The resulting two pieces were then put on a balance to find the center points, and those pieces were cut in half. That process was continued once more to produce eight cobs of equal weight from the strap.
The actual photo of the strap and similar end-to-end series of cobs made from such a strap appears in the Sedwick article. Click on one of the above links to see the photo.
According to Sedwick, Lou Ullian assured Sedwick that the uncut silver strap shown in the photo existed, but at the time its location was unknown.
So that gives a picture of how cobs were created.
The Sedwick article refers to coins of the 1600s and 1700s as cobs. Later coins were machine made, and earlier coins were made using a slightly different procedure, which is the main point that I wanted to get to.
I read a sentence somewhere that clearly stated that the first coins produced by the Mexico mint were not cobs. I wish I could find where I read that now. I suspect it is in the Nesmith article or the Sewall Menzel book even though I couldn't find it in either of those now.
And Sedwick mentions that a time-saving innovation that occurred in the late 1500s resulted in the cobs that were produced in the 1600s and 1700s, and the process described above.
As Nesmith says, the earlier coins were round and flat. They were made from thin sheets, and that shows on the one that was recently found. It is thin, round and not chunky like most of the 1715 Fleet coins you will find.
In describing the earlier coins, Nesmith says, The bullion was cast into thin bars, and hammered or rolled into strips from which the blanks were cut and rounded. This work was done by Indians or slaves under the supervision of Spanish foremen, capataces.
So I gather that the difference was that the early coins were first "hammered or rolled" into sheets and then cut into planchets before being delivered for stamping. The innovation that occurred in the last 1500s seems to be that the silver was not first rolled or hammered into thin sheets before the planchets were cut. Instead the planchets were simply cut to the proper size from the poured straps, as described above,. That would eliminate the intermediate step and explain why later coins were typically chunkier and not as round and flat as the earlier coins.
I was just thinking through what I read in various sources and trying to put it together. If you can correct any of that, please do.
By the way, the Craig book on the silver coins of the Florida collection is no help on the earliest Mexico coins. No examples are shown.
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Want to dig dinosaur fossils? There is a place in New Jersey where you can do that, according to an article I just found on the Fodors.com web site.
About 66 million years ago, the theory goes, an enormous asteroid hit Earth and killed off most of the world’s dinosaurs in a catastrophic event. As the eons passed, little fossil evidence remained to prove this theory–until now. In New Jersey, a pit holding countless numbers of dead dinos was being used as a quarry for marl, a type of sandy soil used as fertilizer. After decades of use, the pit was abandoned. Initially touted as a fossil hot spot, the marl pit was largely forgotten, although its original owner continued to pump out water so paleontologists could explore. A local business had other plans for the site:...
And there are other places you can hunt for fossils. You can find a list of the top 15 places to dig fossils by using the RockSeeker link below.
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Correction - I said Kathi G. found the spikes that I showed recently. It should have read Wayne G.
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We have another tropical storm on the weather map - Eta. Eta is heading towards Central America, so won't affect us much.
I am eagerly watching the most recent MagicSeaWeed surf predictions.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com. |
Notice the increase in surf predicted for Monday. Also notice the bigger surf predicted for Saturday.
It could get interesting again.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net