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Long, thin, flat "tumbaga" silver bar #1161, 3 lb 1 oz av, marked with assayer/owner B~Vo, serial RC

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Shipwreck Ingots Start Price:3,000.00 USD Estimated At:3,500.00 - 5,000.00 USD
Long, thin, flat  tumbaga  silver bar #1161, 3 lb 1 oz av, marked with assayer/owner B~Vo, serial RC
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This item SOLD at 2012 Oct 25 @ 15:31UTC-4 : AST/EDT
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Long, thin, flat "tumbaga" silver bar #1161, 3 lb 1 oz av, marked with assayer/owner B~Vo, serial RC and fineness, rare as uncleaned. 13" x 2-3/4" x 3/8". Before Douglas Armstrong was hired to conserve the bulk of the "tumbaga" bars from this wreck, a handful were taken to the University of Michigan's Dr. Adon A. Gordus for chemical analysis, which proved the bars were silver but showed skewed results due to the fact that the bars had not been cleaned yet. Those bars were then sold in the Christie's (London) auction of 1993, still uncleaned, and disappeared to the four corners of the earth (which is why they are not in Armstrong's book). The present lot is one of those bars sold in 1993, a very thin bar with frosty green encrustation gracing dark, almost copper surfaces, the clear markings all on one side, including fineness IUCCCCxx (1420/2400 = 59.2% fine) with a little S extending diagonally (first time we've seen that), partial round tax stamps at either end, with one corner cut away for the assayer's "bite." From the "Tumbaga wreck" (ca. 1528), and pedigreed to the Christie's (London) auction of April 28, 1993, with original lot-tag #275 and with original Gordus assay report from 1993.