Page 69 - Treasure, World & U.S. Coin Auction 17

Spanish 1715 Fleet, east coast of Florida

252. Large, rectangular, Peruvian gold bar, 2148 grams, marked with fineness XX• (20.25K) and castle-and-stars tax
stamp, from the 1715 Fleet. 5-1/2” x 2-3/4” x 1/2”. This curious “flat brick” shows several clear markings on a top surface that is very rough
due to the incomplete melting of its constituents, which appear to be disks (probably oro corriente or jewelry or possibly even gold cobs), the
markings being four clear tax stamps showing a castle between six-point stars for Lima, Peru, plus two finenesses of separate incuse X’s with
dot inside an incuse circle, and finally a hand-inscribed serial number VIII, which appears to be the next in sequence after a nearly matching
bar (lot #337, marked VII and possibly even from the same mold) in the Christie’s (London) auction of April 1993 (coincidentally famous
for being the first auction of bars from the ca.-1528 “Tumbaga wreck”), whose description lacks the provenance and mistakenly attributes
the castle mark to Charles V of the early 1500s. (This system of serial-numbering also matches a “II” seen on lot #49 of our first auction, a
2662-gram beast that was also featured in our Practical Book of Cobs [2nd and 3rd eds., 1990 and 1995] and the book Spanish Treasure Bars
by Craig & Richards [2003].) The sides of this bar are neatly sloping to a relatively smooth bottom with typical depressions, with cylindrical
assayer’s “bite” taken out of one corner. It remains to be said that 1715-Fleet gold bars are rarely offered and highly in demand. From the 1715
Fleet. Estimate: $100,000-up.

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