THE TRUE "FIRST GOLD COIN OF THE AMERICAS," RECOVERED FROM THE "TUMBAGA" WRECK, CIRCA 1528, OFF GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND
By Dan Sedwick
 The first gold coin minted in the Americas is the famous Cartagena cob 2 escudos of 1622, of
which only five are known, One of these, supposedly the finest of the five, will be auctioned in March (couple of years ago - BR) as part of the Norweb Collection, and its conservative estimate Is $15,000 - $25,000.
    But the first gold coin minted in the New World is not the true "first gold coin-" That distinction
belongs to the gold pieces cut from cast gold bars made from Native American artifacts, melted down at the time of the Conquest (circa 1520).  For centuries there has been documentation that such gold pieces once existed-for example, Cortes used them to pay his troops and for early commerce in the newly-vanquished Mexico-but no surviving specimens were known.  According to contemporary texts, these first "coins" were to bear the marks of Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) and the fineness of the gold contained therein. Because there was not enough gold to go around, Cort6s himself was responsible for adulterating the melted gold with copper, which in the language of the Aztecs was tepuizili, giving rise to the Spanish term “tepuzque gold" for gold pieces such as these.  According to Pradeau in his Numismaiic History of Mexico, "for ninety-six grains of tepuzque gold, 272 maravedies was paid." Again, such circulating pieces were documented, but had not been seen in modem times.
    Then in 1992, divers found and salvaged an unidentified wreck off Grand Bahama Island that
produced a number of silver and gold ingots-all more or less adulterated with copper-whose markings indicated they were cast in Mexico in the 1520s.  They also recovered ten small gold "coins," from about 6 to 86 grams each, which were offered as a group at a "treasure auction" aimed at wealthy socialites ($1,000 fee just to bid!) in Atlantic City in January of 1993.  With a simple description of only "assorted small gold pieces ... Mexican origin, early 16th century," it is no wonder these gold pieces did not sell, and all but one of the ten specimens were offered at auction again in London in April of 1993 (this time individually), where they were described as 'possibly the earliest examples known of an attempt by the first Spanish settlers of the New World to create a useable form of local currency from American gold.’ These nine gold "coins" reportedly sold for about $1,600 to $4,215, as much as ten times the estimate, but still far lower than they deserved to achieve.  Practically everyone-including us and the auction house, but not the happy buyers- neglected to see the full significance of these nine little chunks of gold, the true "first gold coins of
the Americas."
    There is no doubt that this specimen is the best of the ten known, with the prescribed marks bold
and full.- crowned-C of Emperor Charles and fineness XV followed by a column of three dots (15 3/4 karats). It is also the most coin-like of the recovered specimens, as it is nearly exactly pentagonal in shape, about 7/8" in diameter, and about 1/4" thick, with sloping sides and both markings on top, 23.8 grams in weight. Furthermore, this appears to be one of the purest of the ten tepuzque gold "coins," as most of the others show a lot of copper color (one is clearly marked "VIIII" for 9 karat!).

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THE NEW WORLD'S FIRST ASSAYED AND STAMPED COINAGE
An article about related items from the 17th century.  I don't know who wrote it.  If you do, please tell me.
 The following group of cut and counterstamped pieces represent the very first marked pieces of
legalized coinage in the New World.  A brief overview of the little known history of these pieces are asfollows.
 Upon arrival in Hispaniola and Mexico the Spaniards encountered the local Indians trading in the
necessities of life and the use of gold was restricted to ornaments.  The Spaniards immediately placed atax on the Indians and started taxing the local Indian population in Hispaniola.  Columbus was alsoauthorized to start a mint in Hispaniola in 1497 on his second trip to the island.  No record exists to showthat he ever did start a mint making coinage.  They did however, make revenue tax discs to show theIndians had paid taxes.  The ornaments and tax revenue pieces existed mainly as crude sheets of goldmetal beat out into irregular shapes.  This was also true to some extent in Mexico.  In addition, Mexico had many artifacts from the Aztecs which were seized and shipped back to Spain.  The absolutely insatiableappetite for gold in Spain was phenomenal.  Spain prohibited the use of gold in Hispaniola and stated they could use only Maravedi struck in Spain (i.e. copper coins of no intrinsic value).  These coins were never issued in sufficient quantity for local commerce.  Gold strips and discs were being used in Mexico which were called "Tejos.”  These pieces were in use by the 1520s in Mexico, where the Spaniards were already involved in fraud by mixing large amounts of copper into the gold and defrauding the local population by making payments with these pieces of metal which were called "Peso Oro de Tepuzque."  The governments of Mexico and of Spain tried in vain to regulate these "Tejos" with varying degrees of failure. The Spaniards even went so far as to institute a duplicate system of values for gold which was mined, Peso de Minas (which was 22 1/2 pure gold), and the "Tejos" of low grade gold.  All of this was done and effected upon an Indian population that scarcely understood Spanish.  One does not have to wonder who was victimized in these circumstances.  The simultaneous use of Oro de Minas (good gold of at least 22 1/2 carats), Peso de Oro in Polvo ( gold dust), Peso de Oro fundido y marcado (cast gold, marked, etc), and silver with similar names and denominations led to massive fraud throughout the colonies.  Burzio furnishes many references to all of the fraud, shortage of the King’s fifth being collected, and absolute impossibility of consistent value being assigned to each.
     It must be remembered that virtually nothing has been written concerning these early attempts of
making a commercially viable monetary system.  The reason has been twofold. 1. None of these pieces were known in gold until the discovery of the Tumbago wreck sold by Christie's in 1993 and these current pieces found on the Dry Tortuga wreck, which are coins from the 1622 Atocha silver fleet wreck. 2. None of the catalogers of these pieces ever went to the trouble to properly catalogue and research them.  That probably being because the people doing the cataloging did not have the proper language skills, and/or library to do the research.  In almost every case these pieces have been called cut off bits of bars, etc.  See Christie's Lot #84 (June 15, 1988), Christie's sale of the Tombago pieces (April 1993) Lots 257 to 265 . Also similar silver lots by Dieter Gomy Giessener Munzhandlung Munich auction catalogue #70 (November 19, 1994) Lots#1012,1013, and 1014.
    The true name of these pieces are "Peso de Oro Ensayado" or assayed gold pesos.  These pieces were decreed by the Real Cedular (Royal Decree) of October 28, 1586 by Phillip II.  Assigning these pieces a value of 13 1/4 Reales or 450 Maravedi.  The gold had to be 22 1/2 carats.  This coinage, according to Burzio, was in use throughout the Americas until the middle of the 16th Century, or until colonies could replace them. This was one final attempt by the Spaniards to collect the 20%  tax for the King of Spain and to stop fraud.  Therefore, all of this coinage had to carry part of the tax stamp and the carat stamp where space permitted.  It should be noted that these pieces do not always carry the same  carat as specified in the decree of Phillip II.
    These pieces, which, along with the Tumbago group sold by Christie's presents the two largest
single offerings ever presented either privately or publicly.  This group from the Dry Tortuga wreck are definitely from the 1622 Plate Fleet Wrecks, which included the Atocha, etc.  I have personally examined all of the coins and all conform to the coins of Phillip III or beginning of Phillip IV.  This wreck also yielded two different 1622 NR, 8 Reales coins which were unknown until the Atocha was found.  These pieces were  definitely the circulating gold medium of exchange circulating in 1622.  According to Burzio they continued to circulate until the 1700's when all were melted and made into Cob gold and/or round milled coinage.  These were pieces used in everyday commerce by the common business man  and/or laborer, and were the equivalent of the pieces of 8 Escudos later struck and made famous as "pirate's gold," etc.  These coins are clearly the first legalized recognizable mediums of bullion related exchange known to the New World.  Each is a unique piece that was exchanged for it's intrinsic value.  The authors Burzio and Medina, both liberally refer to these pieces but none were known to survive until modern technology was able to salvage these pieces from the ocean's floor.  These coins were salvaged from a depth of 1500 feet. It can be said these are truly the first stamped coinage of the New World with  legal status throughout the New World and Spain.  Each piece being unique and very rare, as these are less than 25 presently known to exist.  No market value has been firmly established to date.  The only recorded sales have realized prices up to 300 times the intrinsic value and even these would appear to be reasonable, due to the rarity of the known pieces today.