Digging through albums, boxes and cases of old, crusted-up, grimy, forgotten coins from defunct entities from all around the world can often be a thankless and pointless task. You find all kinds of coins which are not particularly rare, or particularly interesting, or particularly valuable. You find all kinds of coins which are grubby, sticky, grimy, tarnished, chipped, dented and otherwise distinctly unappealing in one way or another.
But occasionally – just occasionally – you do find gems!
Finding the Coin of Destiny
This post is inspired by some coins which I found in the past month or so, while digging around at the local market.
It was on a cold, blustery morning, when I trudged through my local flea-market looking for…stuff. I stopped at the table of a regular stallholder and started burrowing through the cases and trays of coins on offer. Admittedly I don’t do this as a matter of habit – I rarely look for coins at flea-markets, and rarely bother looking through huge swathes of the things, since nine times out of ten, the coins I’m interested in are nowhere to be found, except for specialist coin-collecting stores.
But as I rummaged, I found something, buried under all the offerings of British shillings, Dutch 2 Guilder coins, Indian Rupees, grimy copper pennies and American half-dollars. Inside some simple cardboard coin-holders, crudely stapled together and with near-illegible biro-markings on the border, were three silver coins.
LARGE silver coins!
Out of sheer curiosity, I picked them up and felt them in my hand. They were heavy. Substantial pieces of silver. I examined them closely and spotted a coat of arms between two pillars with banners coiled around them, beneath a crown. Around the edges were Latin inscriptions. One of them read:
“HISPAN. ET. IND. REX. M. 8R. I. I.”
With a stupid little grin on my face, I flipped the little packet over and on the other side was:
“FERDIN. VII. DEI GRATIA” and four numbers: “1820”.
Oh boy.
Oh Boy!
OH BOY!!
A (nearly) 200-year-old silver coin. And not just any silver coin. I looked back at the other side. Sure enough, clear for everyone to see:
“8R”
As in ‘Eight Reales’ (pronounced ‘Ree-ahlz‘)
Out of all that crud and junk, I’d just picked up one of the most famous coins in the world.
A Spanish Dollar. Better known as a Piece of Eight. Fought, squabbled, traded and passed from hand to hand between pirates, traders, merchants, sailors, kings, queens, soldiers and colonials since the end of the 15th century, it is a coin of almost legendary history. A coin, rare variations of which, can fetch literally thousands of dollars – for a piece of silver no bigger than the dial of a man’s wristwatch.
I picked up another one.
“1790”
Ooooh boy!!
I picked up the third one!
“1779”
Hot dawg, we got us a winner!
I flipped the coins back and forth to check the prices and their conditions. When I saw the prices, my heart skipped a beat. They were going cheap! Real cheap!
The three Pieces of Eight (top, bottom and left) which have joined my antique coin collection, together with their brother on the right.
That was when all the alarm-bells started going off in my head. This is either the bargain of a lifetime…or it’s a very clever forgery – and yes, these coins ARE faked. I know that for a fact because I’ve bought (but managed to return) a fake, once in the past (that was a close call!).
Now, as an aside, you might ask, what does it matter? If it’s a nice one, and you can’t afford a real one, then, why not buy a fake? It doesn’t really matter, right?
Yeah, but the problem is – a fake may not matter to you, now – but it’ll matter in 50 years when your grandsons take it to the Antiques Roadshow and their five minutes of fame on international television becomes an international embarrassment when they find out that grandpa got duped with a fake coin. Nobody wants fakes. And if you just coughed up $200 for one, and can’t get it back…you’re screwed!
Anyway. Back to the coins!
Very politely, I asked to examine them. I carefully teased back the staples using a precision instrument – better known as a fingernail – and slipped them out. I popped the three coins from their covers – the three pieces of eight…and then asked to borrow the dealer’s jewelry scale.
If you’re going to be any kind of antiques collector, or dealer – I highly recommend getting one of these little pocket scales. They don’t cost much and their highly precise measurements are specifically for measuring precious metals. I turned the scale on and popped the coins on, one at a time.
A piece of eight should weigh NO MORE than 27.07g. NO LESS than 26g, unless it’s REALLY, REALLY, REALLY worn out.
Coin #1: 26g. Exactly.
Coin #2: 26.52g.
Coin #3: 26.69g.
Alright! Looks like we’re in the clear. It’s a cheap and dirty field-test, but it’s generally quite trustworthy. It’s based on the fact that specific metals have specific densities. A specific size of silver coin will always weigh a specific weight, as opposed to one made of say, nickel-silver, or steel, or some other cheap, imitation-metal like that. A nickel-silver or pewter coin won’t weigh the same amount for the same size of metal.
At first, the weight of the first coin (at only 26g) worried me. But then, that coin was the oldest, and by far the most worn-out. I figured the weight of 26g was acceptable given its condition.
The backs of the coins, showing their ages. 1779, 1790, 1802, and 1820.
Satisfied that the coins were indeed the real deal, next came the haggling. This is where visiting the same flea-market every week for 20 years, so often that people recognise you on sight, comes in handy. When you’re a friendly, regular, weekly face to the long-term dealers, they know who you are, they know what you buy, they know what you pay, they know that eventually, you will buy something from them sooner or later. This helps grease the gears of generosity.
In the end, I toddled off with the coins in my pocket. They were already dirt-cheap and I got them even better than that! Very excited! This now brings my collection (it can now be called a collection, right?) up to the giddy heights of FOUR coins! Oh my, oh my…
The History of the Piece of Eight
So, enough about buying the coins. What about the coins themselves? What exactly makes a Piece of Eight so special? Why is it called a Piece of Eight? What is it about this coin that has made it so famous for so long? Where did it come from? Where did it go? How long did it last?
The official Spanish name for the Piece of Eight was the Reale De a Ocho – Eight Reales. The Real (without the second ‘e’) was the Spanish currency from the 1300s all the way up to the middle of the 19th century! That said, the Piece of Eight or ‘Spanish Dollar’ as it’s also called, doesn’t date back that far. It shows up on the scene about 100-200 years later.
To make the Real easier to count and manage, when Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Spain in the 1490s, returning it to the realms of Christendom, they also reorganised Spain’s pre-existing monetary system. The basis for the new system was to be the 8 Reales coin.
Together, the Escudo (introduced later, in the mid-1500s) and the Real (one gold, one silver) formed the bedrock of this new currency system of the steadily-growing Kingdom (later, Empire) of Spain. They were minted in denominations of 1/2 Real, 1 Real, 2, Reales, 4 Reales, 8 Reales (the ‘Piece of Eight’), 1/2 Escudo (which was equal to one Piece of Eight), 1 Escudo (equal to two Pieces of Eight), 2 Escudo, 4 Escudo, and 8 Escudo (equal to 16 Pieces of Eight!). The 8 Escudo coin (the largest denomination coin manufactured by Spain) was also called a Doubloon.
Of all these coins, the Doubloon and the Piece of Eight became the most famous, the Doubloon for its large size and high gold content, the Piece of Eight for its near universal usage, large size, and impact on world history, which I’ll get to, further down…
Where did Pieces of Eight Come From?
Pieces of Eight were largely manufactured in the Spanish New World colonies such as Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. The vast majority of the silver used to make Pieces of Eight was mined out of Potosi, a mountain in modern-day Bolivia which was almost completely solid silver. Thousands of tons of silver was mined out of Potosi and this silver was refined, melted and then stamped and shaped into Pieces of Eight (and their smaller denomination coins) to be shipped back to Spain in their millions.
As European powers started colonising North and South America in the 1500s and 1600s, a readily-available system of currency needed to be adopted so that transactions and trade could take place.
The 8 Reales coin, already available in abundance in South America, Mexico, and various parts of North America, became the ideal coin (and by extension, currency) for colonials to trade with. Some countries (such as Britain) actively tried to dissuade the colonists from using British (or other European-power) currency, and so foreign coins (ie: the Piece of Eight) were used instead. The Piece of Eight was almost universally accepted as currency because it was a known quantity. People knew that it was a large coin of proven silver content, and this made it ideal for trade.
Why is the Piece of Eight so Famous?
The Piece of Eight is famous for a number of reasons. The first reason is that the Piece of Eight is widely considered to be the world’s first global or international currency. From the date of its first minting until it finally went out of circulation (Ca. 1865), the Piece of Eight was accepted as currency almost all over the world. And I mean ALL over the world. Canada, America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Britain, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and China ALL used the Piece of Eight as a form of currency in one way or another at some point during the coin’s official run as legal tender.
Its large size, heavy weight, high silver content and easily-recognisable design, made the Piece of Eight easily accepted around the world, when no other currency was available. Even in China, where the locals probably couldn’t read (let alone understand) the Latin inscriptions around the coin’s edge, they knew silver when they saw it, and they accepted it as payment for their goods such as porcelain, tea and silk. To ensure that the coin was the real deal, Chinese merchants would test the coin by hammering a seal into the coin to check its silver content. These seals were (and still are) called ‘chops’, and the dents they left in the coins are called ‘chop-marks’. It’s not uncommon to find Pieces of Eight used in the China trade festooned with chop-marks as the coins moved from merchant-to-merchant, each one striking the coin to ensure that it was solid silver.
Pirates and Pieces of Eight
The second reason why Pieces of Eight are so famous is because of their indelible link to the Golden Age of Piracy, the Age of Colonisation, the Age of Exploration, the Age of Sail, and the Enlightenment movements of the 1600s, 1700s and early 1800s.
As I said, Pieces of Eight were largely manufactured in South America and Mexico. To get Pieces of Eight back to Spain, the Spanish government organised a system of treasure-convoys. Basically, what happened was that every few months (say, two or three times a year), a fleet of ships was sent from Spain to the Caribbean and South America. This fleet of ships carried food, water, essential supplies, trade-goods and other necessities and materials required by the colonists living in Spanish holdings in and around the Caribbean Sea.
Once the ships had been offloaded of their cargo, their holds were reloaded with thousands, millions of gold and silver coins – usually escudos, doubloons, Pieces of Eight, and their various smaller denominations – along with tons of gold and silver in the form of bars (ingots).
Thus-loaded, the ships, in convoy, would sail for home.
It was these treasure-bearing Spanish convoys that were a prime target for nominally enemy nations, such as the Netherlands, France, and especially – protestant England.
So, did pirates and privateers really attack Spanish treasure galleons or even entire fleets? Were fleets lost in storms and hurricanes during the voyage back to Spain?
Oh, you bet.
Spanish treasure fleets were lost to storms or hurricanes with surprising frequency. Fleets sank in 1622, 1708, 1715, 1733 and 1750, to name but a few! One ship which sank in the 1622 storm was the Nuestra Señora de Atocha (“Our Lady of Atocha”). The Atocha is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most valuable shipwreck ever found – probably because it was loaded with 40 tons of gold and silver!
OK, but what about ships lost to epic sea-battles? Did those ever happen?
They certainly did. On the 8th of June, 1708, the Spanish treasure galleon the San Jose was blasted to kingdom come by English cannons during a battle during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Eager to stop the treasure-loaded fleet from reaching Spain (and therefore funding the enemy) English warships under the command of Admiral Sir Charles Wager, attacked the Spanish off the coast of Colombia.
The San Jose (center-left) being blown to pieces by British cannonfire during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Three Spanish ships were destroyed in the engagement. One of them was the San Jose. It sank with hundreds of of gold and silver coins on board, as well as several pounds of jewels (mostly emeralds). It was discovered a few years ago, and as of 2017, salvage-operations are underway to retrieve the wreck’s vast fortune (calculated at being $17,000,000,000 – or $17 BILLION in American dollars, as of 2018).
So, that covers treasure lost in shipwrecks and to enemy action on the high seas, but were Pieces of Eight ever handled and used by actual, real-life pirates?
Absolutely.
Despite their ravenous, bloodthirsty image from popular culture such as television, films and books, pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy (roughly the 1620-1800) were surprisingly democratic and socially progressive creatures for ruthless, armed thugs. Surviving documents and books, written during the Golden Age of Piracy (largely during the late 1600s and early 1700s) state that pirates would vote and debate on almost anything and everything. To maintain order and efficiency and comfort at sea, pirate ships had lists of rules, and codes of conduct, which all pirates were expected to obey – and no, unlike in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, they weren’t ‘more like guidelines’ – they were strictly adhered to!
One such regulation was the payment of health insurance! Pirates were entitled to a monetary payout (‘recompense’ as it says in the original documents) if they were injured in the course of a battle, but survived the engagement. Insurance levels varied, and depended on where you were injured, with different payouts stipulated for the loss of hands, arms, legs, fingers, or eyes.
So, how were these payments made? In Pieces of Eight, of course! And these could be very, very, VERY substantial payments. Loss of an eye was equal to 100 Pieces of Eight. Loss of an arm or leg could be up to 500 or 600 Pieces of Eight!
The Piece of Eight: The First Global Currency
Spain had colonies in Mexico, North America, South America, and the Far East. Spanish trade dominated the world from the late 1400s right up to the end of the 18th century. Because of this, the Piece of Eight was a coin that was used all over the world. Every continent permanently settled by mankind up to the start of the 19th century was touched by this coin in one way or another. It was the only coin which saw near-universal acceptance, being used as currency in Canada, America, Australia, Britain, much of South America and the Caribbean, Mexico, China, Africa and across Europe.
In America, the Piece of Eight was legal tender until 1857, when the first, truly American-made coins had been made in sufficient-enough quantities to replace it. In Australia, the Piece of Eight was legal tender until 1825. in China, the Piece of Eight was used as money up until roughly the time of the Opium Wars (1840s and 50s). In 1864, the Reale was finally retired as the Spanish unit of currency, to be replaced by the Peseta – the currency of Spain from 1869 until the country adopted the Euro, in 2001.
In China, merchants refused to trade with Europeans in anything except silver coinage. In this respect, the Piece of Eight was ideal as a system of currency. Its large size and high silver content made it highly attractive to the Chinese. But of course, the Chinese, not trusting these strange, white devils, would always test any silver coins given to them, before they accepted them as payment.
The 1779 dollar. Observe the areas circled in blue. The symbols hammered into the silver are chop marks made by Chinese merchants.
This was done by hammering a punch into the face of the coin to test its silver content, and also to mark that the coin had been independently assayed by a Chinese merchants to attest its authenticity. A coin with loads of chop-marks hammered all over it was taken to be a coin of proven silver-content, and was therefore acceptable for use as payment.
In Australia, the Piece of Eight was the nation’s first official currency after the island was colonised in the 1780s. Early in Australia’s history, rum, tobacco and other foodstuffs were used as barter, but when this became unsustainable, the governor of the day decided that foreign coins of known value would be appropriate for use as currency within the colony and a list of foreign coins was compiled. Only the coins on the list could be used as currency within Australia. These coins became known as Proclamation Coins, since they were the coins mentioned specifically in the proclamation from Government House.
The problem with these coins is that they could still be used OUTSIDE of Australia. This meant that loads of these coins were leaving the island on merchant ships which sailed to Australia to do trade with the colony. They sold their stuff to the colonists, who paid them in the valuable coinage, and then the sailors sailed off, leaving even fewer coins in the settlement.
To stop this, the next governor down the line decided that ONE type of coin would be used: The Spanish Silver Dollar or the Piece of Eight. He bought a whole heap of these coins (thousands of them) from Britain and had them shipped to Australia.
To make the coins worthless outside of Australia, he had them punched out. The larger ‘donut’ on the outside was called the “Holey Dollar” and the punched out nugget in the center became known as the ‘Dump’. The Holey Dollar was worth 5/- (five shillings), and the dump was worth 15d (fifteen pence).
In 1825, this practice was discontinued when a law was passed stipulating that ONLY British currency would be used within Australia. As a result, all the Holey Dollars and Dumps were swept up and tossed into the melter’s pot. Today, a Piece of Eight can be easily purchased online, although prices can vary wildly. By comparison, a Holey Dollar and Dump are worth THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS each, because so few of them survive today.
How Was a Piece of Eight Made?
The earliest Pieces of Eight were simply made by hacking off chunks of silver from cast bars (ingots) of silver, shaving them down until they were the prerequisite weight, and then punching the pre-carved designs (engraved into metal die-punches) into the coins, using a punch (like a stamp) and a hammer to apply the force. In this way, coins were quite literally ‘hand-struck’, and handmade, one after the other, piecemeal. Once one side of the coin had been struck, it was simply flipped over and the opposing die-punch was struck to the other side.
Coins such as these are called ‘cob’ coins and their crude methods of manufacture meant that they were often open to forgery. To have any faith in the money, even if it was solid gold or silver, merchants would routinely weigh coins to ensure that the cob in question was of the correct weight, since it wasn’t unknown for unscrupulous dealers to hack off the corners of silver coins and pass them off as whole ones, and then use the scavenged silver for something else (this practice was called ‘clipping’ the coin, since you clipped a bit off the edge each time).
The milled edges of the Pieces of Eight, an anti-clipping measure. The worn rim on the 1779 coin (left) explains why it’s a whole gram lighter than what a perfect coin would weigh.
By the 1700s, more advanced methods of coin-manufacture, similar to how coins are made today, started being devised, and anti-tampering measures such as decorated, milled edges started being introduced. With a milled or decorated edge to the coin, it was immediately obvious if it had been tampered with, thereby reducing the risk of someone wanting to ‘clip’ the coin for its silver-content.
Unless the Piece of Eight you own is EXTREMELY old (pre-1700s), it’s likely to be a milled coin rather than a cob coin.
The Anatomy of a Piece of Eight
By the 1700s, the general design of the Piece of Eight started becoming more or less standardised, with a few minor changes as the years progressed.
A typical Piece of Eight from the 1700s up through to the 1820s and 30s consisted of, on one side, the name of the reigning Spanish monarch of the day, the year of minting, and the Latin phrase “Dei Gratia” (“God’s Grace”, or “By the Grace of God”).
the other side of the coin had a crown at the top, and beneath that, a coat of arms. These consisted of castles and lion rampants set into the quarters, The Fleur de Lys of the House of Bourbon, in the middle, and beneath, a pomegranate. To either side are pillars, signifying the Pillars of Hercules, which corresponded to the Rock of Gibraltar (northern pillar) and the northwestern-most point of the African continent. Since antiquity, the Pillars of Hercules symbolised the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.
For centuries, the Pillars of Hercules, guarding the entrance to the mighty Atlantic Ocean, were seen as the gateway to the unknown. What existed beyond them was pure conjecture. The Latin phrase “Non Plus Ultra” (“Nothing Further Beyond“) became widely associated with the pillars.
The Spanish coat of arms and the Pillars of Hercules on the coin.
This all changed in the 1490s when Christopher Columbus discovered the New World! Suddenly, there WAS something beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and with daring and tenacity, that something could be reached, colonised, explored, and exploited!
To this end, the old motto of “Non Plus Ultra” was changed to “Plus Ultra” (“Further Beyond“). It became the national motto of the Kingdom of Spain, and was added in swirling scrolls around the Pillars of Hercules on the Piece of Eight, to indicate that the wealth, power and influence of the Spanish started in Spain, and spread “Plus Ultra” – “Further Beyond” than the eyes of man could possibly see!
You will need an extremely powerful magnifying glass (and a Piece of Eight of the right vintage in good condition) but the microscopic letters are visible on the scrolls around the pillars.
Finally, around the coat of arms and the Pillars of Hercules are the words:
“HISPAN. ET. IND. REX.” (“King of Spain and the Indies“), the mint-marks (in my case, an LM for Lima, and an M for Mexico City), the monetary designation of ‘8R‘ (8 Reales), and finally, the initials of the assay master overseeing production of the coins.
The Influence of the Piece of Eight
Not for nothing is the Piece of Eight, arguably the most famous coin in the world. The Chinese Yuan, the American Dollar, the Mexican Peso and countless other currencies around the world, all owe SOMETHING to the Piece of Eight. For example, when the Piece of Eight was finally pulled from circulation in the ‘States in 1857, its official replacement was the American Silver Dollar. This was a coin which was 38mm across, weighed 27g, and which was 90% solid silver.
Do those measurements sound familiar? They should – they’re the EXACT same ones used by the Piece of Eight, on which the silver dollar was based!
An American Silver Dollar (left, from 1891) next to the stack of Pieces of Eight (right). Observe the size. Not only that, they’re almost exactly the same thickness and weight. They’re also almost the same silver content.
The American system of quarters, nickels and dimes are also directly descended from the Piece of Eight. The idea of the Half Dollar and Quarter Dollar come from the original practice of quite literally – chopping up a Piece of Eight into halves, and quarters – and sometimes – even eighths! You could literally have an eighth of a Piece of Eight! These cut up silver coins were part of the basis of loose change today.
If you want more proof that the Piece of Eight is indeed, the most famous and influential coin in the world, then have you ever considered the dollar-sign? You know. This thing: “$”.
Look closely at a Piece of Eight. Here…
Notice the scrolls wrapped around the pillars of Hercules? See anything familiar there? The scrolls around the pillars was what led to the symbol for the dollar – the S with the two lines through it. Such is the influence of the Piece of Eight that MILLIONS of people use that symbol every day without even realising where it comes from.
Fake Reales – How to Tell Fake Coins from Real Coins
I openly admit to being a novice and casual coin-collector. I’ve only been doing this for two or three years at most. I like collecting coins with some sort of historical significance, either personal, or global. It was for this reason that I was attracted to seeking out Spanish Reale coins. The problem is, reales are (or can be) very expensive. Very, very, VERY expensive. Prices of $2,000-$3,000+, isn’t unheard of, for exceptionally rare or old examples. That’s why when I saw the price for this coin (which was far, far, FAR less than $2,000), I immediately became both interested, and wary of it.
So, if something seems too good to be true, and you want to make sure it IS true, how do you safeguard yourself against buying a dud coin?
There are a few quick-and-dirty ways.
Magnet Test
The first and easiest way to figure out if a coin is fake is to do a magnet-test. A steel coin purporting to be silver will snap to a magnet like flies to a cowpat. By comparison, a silver coin will not (or will not as readily) stick to a magnet. Some might, due to impurities in the metal, but it should be a slow or weak adherence.
A pair of rare-earth magnets (which are EXTREMELY POWERFUL) will do the trick. Easily purchased at your local car-supplies, or boating/fishing stores. BE SURE TO STORE THESE MAGNETS CAREFULLY – do NOT put them near electronics, mechanical watches, computers, phones or anything else like that – the extremely powerful magnetic field will damage them. Store them somewhere far away from other items, ideally in a padded cardboard or wooden box.
However, super-powerful magnets alone are not enough. You can get coins which are made of cheap, silver-like alloys (nickel-silver, for example) which will react the same way as real coins. So, what else can you do?
Weight and See!
The next test is to weigh the coin. A small (but highly-accurate) digital pocket jeweler’s scale costs very little. A few tens of dollars at your local jewelry-supply shop (where I bought mine) or online. Take it with you if you go bargain-hunting or antiquing regularly. Of course, for this to work – you need to know what the coin is SUPPOSED to weigh, in the first place. Perhaps keep a note of the coins you’re after, and their correct weights (easily found online from numismatic websites) with the scale for when you take it out with you. Then, simply weigh the coin. A coin which is SIGNIFICANTLY over-or-underweight is likely to be a fake. A coin which is exactly the correct weight, or slightly under (within one gram) is likely to be real.
For example, a Spanish Piece of Eight weighs 27.07g. That’s if you can find a PERFECT one. Very few Spanish reales are perfect. That being the case, expect SOME loss in weight. Instead of 27.07, it might be 27.00. Or 26.3, or 26.7, or 26.5, or 26.25. Unless the coin is missing a LOT of metal, it shouldn’t ever dip down into the 25g-range. If it does, approach with caution.
Unless you are absolutely certain that you can spot a fake – stay well away from any suspect coins like that. A fake Piece of Eight will weigh significantly less than 27, or even 26 grams. They can drop all the way down to 22, 25, 23 grams, etc. Any coin registering that sort of weight is a HUGE red-flag. Put it down, and walk away slowly.
Wear and Tear
Last but not least, check the physical condition of a coin. Any coin that is too perfect or too imperfect may be suspect. The exceptions to this are if the coin is really, really old, or if it’s shipwreck-salvage (yes, you can buy shipwreck coins, and it’s perfectly legal to do so). A genuine antique coin will have genuine antique wear and flaws and damage on it. Rubbed lettering, faded imagery, dents, cracks, dings – in some cases, they’ll even have chunks taken out of them. Some will have their corners or edges completely rubbed-off from decades and centuries of handling. Details like shields, facial-features like eyes, noses, mouths, hair, clothing, lettering, etc, should all show even wear. Milling or edge-decorations should show consistency.
While antique coins were handmade (or made with crude machinery) they nonetheless had to be perfect – or as near-perfect as the assayer and mint could make them. That being the case, any obvious flaws (like half the date falling off the bottom of the coin, when you can clearly see the edge-milling being intact) should serve as red flags for fake coins.
On the Edge
Another way to check whether a coin is fake or not, is to check the edging around the coin’s rim. A Piece of Eight has very distinctive circle-and-square patterning around its edge. This edging – properly called milling – was invented centuries ago as an anti-fraud device. By decorating the edges of coins, it became possible to see whether the coin had been defaced or cut up or been the victim of ‘clipping’ (where minute fragments of the coin’s precious silver had been scraped or filed off).
Fake Spanish dollars will sometimes (but not always) have markedly fake milling around the sides. If you ever see a Spanish dollar with modern corrugated milling on it – run away! Because they never did them like that! Ever!
Fine Details
Another way to figure out if a coin is fake is to compare it against a real coin. Obviously this isn’t always possible to do, but there are certain things you can look out for. Check things like character-spacing and sizing in letters, evenness of stamping, the crispness or clarity of the imagery used on the coin, and the fineness of the edges and rims.
Fake coins won’t bother with things like creases in robes, curls or strands of hair, detail to eyes and mouths on faces, and things like that. Some do, but most fraudsters are just banking on the fact that someone will be too excited by the prospect of getting a rare or famous coin, and will buy the coin too fast to examine it properly, allowing the forger to make a quick buck on a scam. Take as much time as you need to look at suspect coins.
The End of an Era
The Piece of Eight, the coin that ruled the world for three and a half CENTURIES finally came to an end in the 1860s, when in 1869, the Spanish Peseta replaced it as Spain’s official currency. By this point in time the Piece of Eight was already being phased out in other countries around the world anyway, and within a few years, its use had ended completely.
The coin was taken out of circulation and a piece of silver that once ruled the world and had circumnavigated it countless times and had visited every continent permanently settled by man, was suddenly made obsolete, to survive now only in antiques shops, private collections and in the fantasy of books, films and pirate lore…
