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Atocha Complete Colombian gold bar, 2552 grams, 22K marked with foundry/assayer SARGOSA / PECARTA

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Shipwreck Ingots Start Price:100,000.00 USD Estimated At:125,000.00 - 200,000.00 USD
Atocha Complete Colombian gold bar, 2552 grams, 22K marked with foundry/assayer SARGOSA / PECARTA
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This item SOLD at 2012 Oct 25 @ 21:46UTC-4 : AST/EDT
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Complete Colombian gold bar #50, 2552 grams, marked with foundry/assayer SARGOSA / PECARTA and fineness XXII (22K), from the Atocha (1622). 11-1/2" x 1-1/8" x 7/8". This is the largest gold bar we have ever handled from the Atocha, and it is probably the largest bar recovered from that wreck, with over 5 pounds of gold concentrated into a long, slightly curved "banana" with flat top and bottom and sloping sides, rounded ends, all but the top somewhat roughly cast, enabling spots of coral to adhere, the top with markings of fineness five times, rectangular foundry/assayer cartouche (weak in center, stronger on sides) and no less than eight partial (circular, dot-bordered) tax stamps, one end with jagged but essentially cylindrical "bite" where the assayer sampled the gold. The SARGOSA / PECARTA cartouche refers to the gold mine (foundry) at Zaragoza, Colombia, and an assayer (or similar official) whose exact name has not been determined (the letters of which were monogrammed together to make "PECARTA"). Zaragoza, on the shores of the Rio Nechi in the province of Antioquia, was home to one of the most prolific gold mines in the early 1600s, producing some 20 million pesos of gold from 1590 to 1645, and was represented by a caja real (royal treasury office) since 1582. It will be hard to find a more impressive artifact from the Atocha, but certainly this is the most intrinsically valuable! It also has an important pedigree, once owned by the cartographer who pinpointed the "mother lode" in 1985. From the Atocha (1622), with photo-certificate #85A-GB050, and pedigreed to the Ed Little collection.