My grandfather gave me this for a graduation in 2003. He claims it's one of 8 silver spanish doubloons, that was recovered from a sunken treasure chest. I need to know, is it real? How much would it be worth?? See attached photo. Thanks.
Need better photos. Appears to be a 17xx 8 Reales from Mexico. Sea salvage. Sorry, I don't have time to look up the date range for the assayer and ruler. Someone here will.
That design was only minted in Mexico from 1773 to 1788, so that'll narrow down the date range for you. As for authenticity and value; I don't see anything off the top of my head to make me think it's a fake but fakes are quite common. Value wise, the coin is severely damaged and would have little value, less than $100 would be my best guess. The King was Charles III by the way.
"Doubloon" more often refers to the gold denominations. This is a silver 8-reales piece, so the more correct popular term here would be "piece of eight". (Didn't some pirate in literature - Long John Silver, perhaps - have a parrot that would squawk, "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!"? I digress.) That looks like many of the coins salvaged from the El Cazador shipwreck, though there's no way to tell for sure.
Do a search on eBay for completed auctions where El Cazador 8-reales pieces have sold (not just ended, but actually sold). Take into account how much the sold pieces look in comparison to yours (quality on these sea-salvaged pieces varies widely), and whether or not they were slabbed. Also the fact that yours doesn't have the pedigree paperwork to indicate it is in fact from the El Cazador wreck, though that seems somewhat likely to me. I owned one several years ago. Mine was in an ANACS slab, as I recall, and it had the wreck pedigree on the label. It was nicer than the one here, but still noticeably corroded. If I remember correctly, I paid less than $100 for it - somewhere in the upper two-figure pricerange - but this was a decade ago. I do think your coin here is worth considerably less than a hundred bucks as-is - in strictly monetary terms. It is a bit of an ugly duckling, as many sea-salvaged pieces are. (It's interesting how much nicer the reverse is on this particular one.) That being said, rough or not, it's a cool piece of history, and a grandparent's gift has a sentimental value you can't put a pricetag on. Was a nice gift, I say.
Aha. You're online. You were quoting my last post as I was editing and tinkering with it. Yep. Ebay archives.
A few months back picked up one of these NGC graded for $25 @ LCS, it's posted somewhere on here don't recall what thread....the market is flooded with these coins that are both much higher grade then the op coin to specimens worse than the one pictured.
I did end up using it on a trade for a better date h-10 I needed at a small show . I gave the dealer it and $20 for a h-10 worth at least $90-120. That's what he wanted and I was like no problem
