November 2023 Treasure of the Month

Our featured treasure for the month of November is this gold cob 8 escudos, 1699 R from the Spanish colonial mint of Lima, Peru. This example has all the characteristics of a superb specimen, good weight (27 grams), choice strike, well centered with no doubling, broad round flan, full legends, full pillars-and-waves and complete cross, lions and castles. In addition, it displays a colorful array of red, black and green encrustations. With all of its attributes this coin is utterly phenomenal and likely the best example of a 1699 Lima 8 escudos from the small group of Fleet related coins of this type that are known.

The Fleet Society’s pedigree specialist, Charlie Winn, reports that there have been 18 other 1699 R Lima 8 escudos that have been auctioned in the past. Of those only 7 were listed as Fleet coins, with our featured coin as the 8th specimen (see images below).

In Exhibit 1 coins identified as #’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 are Fleet related. In Exhibit 2, coin #2 is Fleet related.

The earliest “non-Fleet” example goes back to 1935 when the Morganthal specimen was offered. We refer to this as a “non-Fleet” coin because we do not know the origin of this coin. It could be Fleet related with no documentation to support its pedigree. Regardless, a comparison of our featured treasure with the other Fleet related examples in Exhibits 1 and 2 illustrates quite convincingly that our coin is by far the best of all the 1699 Lima 8 escudos that bear a Fleet origin.

Our Treasure of the Month is currently listed as Lot 32 in the upcoming Daniel Frank Sedwick Auction 34, November 2 and 3, 2023. Images of our featured treasure courtesy of Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC. and Connor Falk. Background information for the text of this post was provided by Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC.

Special thanks to Fleet Society pedigree specialist Charlie Winn for providing images and research regarding 1699 Lima 8 escudos coins.