I may have shared some of these coins before, but I have acquired a few new examples recently.
One of the coins I have become decidedly interested in lately are the Spanish Colonial Cob type coins.
You quite possibly already know that when Spain first came to the Americas, they found and began working the extensive silver and gold mines in South America. To transport the newly mined precious metals, they also founded several mints to make coins. I have several examples of the first coins minted in the new world, the reales of King Charles and his mother Queen Johana of Spain. These are the second series of the run, when the water was added beneath the pillars on the Obverse. The first type of these coins are far more rare and I do not have any of them.
In this post I have two one real coins of this type, and a stray one real from later on in the Mexico City mint history. The last coin is a 2 reales coin of Carlos and Johana that was sea salvaged. An interesting note is that coins from the 1554 Fleet wreck at Padre Island Texas are illegal for residents of the state of Texas to own. The state ruled that all coins salvaged from those wrecks belong to the State of Texas. There is a wonderful museum exhibit in Corpus Christi of the various types of coins found on the 3 shipwreck sites.
