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Half-cut "tumbaga" silver bar M-46, 4.89 lb av, marked with fineness VCCCL (1350/2400 fine) and two

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Coins: Shipwreck Ingots Start Price:12,000.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 30,000.00 USD
Half-cut  tumbaga  silver bar M-46, 4.89 lb av, marked with fineness VCCCL (1350/2400 fine) and two
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Half-cut "tumbaga" silver bar M-46, 4.89 lb av, marked with fineness VCCCL (1350/2400 fine) and two partial tax stamps, ex-"Tumbaga Wreck" (ca. 1528), García-Barneche Plate. roughly 7¼" x 3½" x ¾". While at first this appears similar to the typical "half brick" size and shape seen among these ingots, it is actually a half cut of a much longer bar, the cut end neatly chiseled, with irregular top surface (where melted artifacts cooled) and smooth bottom marked near the center with a fineness stamp between two circular tax stamps, prominent assayer's "bite" in one corner, gray-gold color all over. Curiously, as documented in Armstrong's book, this bar was among six selected for gas chromatograph analysis by Martin Marietta, indicating that it contained as much as 4.75% gold (second highest gold content of all the bars); but a battery of XRF tests on different parts of the surface show less than 0.5% gold, with silver at around 87%-94% and copper around 8%-11% (with a significant amount of iron at as much as 2%). As with the previous lot, this is probably more a function of surface conservation than actual overall content. From the "Tumbaga Wreck" (ca. 1528), with original Sedwick photo-certificate and Armstrong book Tumbaga Silver for Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (1993, original spiral-bound edition), also plated on page 98 of García-Barneche's book Tumbaga Saga (2nd ed., 2018).