LOT   /  Treasure, World Coin & Paper Money Auction 40  / 

1205

MEXICO, Mexico City, gold bust 4 escudos, Philip V, 1732 F, extremely rare, NGC MS 60 (Shipwreck Blu

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / World Coins By Country Start Price:40,000.00 USD Estimated At:50,000.00 - 100,000.00 USD
MEXICO, Mexico City, gold bust 4 escudos, Philip V, 1732 F, extremely rare, NGC MS 60 (Shipwreck Blu
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MEXICO, Mexico City, gold bust 4 escudos, Philip V, 1732 F, extremely rare, NGC MS 60 (Shipwreck Blue Label), finest known in NGC census, ex-1733 Fleet. Cal-2033; KM-135; Fr-9. We begin this unprecedented offering of the three gold minors of Mexico’s first machine production in 1732 with the finest-known 4 escudos of assayer F, the only one known in certified Mint State and a stunner with sharp full details emanating from lustrous fields, well centered with nearly complete rims (albeit slightly crude), a few stray marks that are not from circulation so much as from the ocean, where it lay in the remains of the Spanish 1733 Fleet for two and a half centuries, a virtual time capsule with remarkably little evidence of immersion.

The first citation of a Mexican 4 escudos 1732 F coming from the 1733 Fleet is the story of how Jack Haskins found one on the site of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias in 1972, related in his article published in the Almanzar auction of December 14, 1979. Jack’s coin, while still encrusted, was illustrated in Bob “Frogfoot” Weller’s book Famous Shipwrecks of the Florida Keys in 1990 and also mentioned in Ernie “Seascribe” Richards’ 2014 booklet Shipwrecks and Their Coins: Volume 6—The 1733 Spanish Treasure Fleet, described as having been “sold at auction for $17,500” (Superior, June 1976, mentioned below as the Calicó Plate Coin). On the next page in that same booklet is a photo of the present coin, one of two found on the San Ignacio site by Geoff Zitver (sometime prior to 1993, the type of the second coin unknown).

The present piece remains the finest of only three examples listed in the NGC census for the type bearing assayer initial F and denomination 4 flanking the crowned arms on reverse, the others being the Rudman specimen graded AU 58 (KM plate coin), and the Eliasberg specimen graded VF Details. (There is also an even rarer pre-series prototype without F and 4 that we do not include here, of which only two are known—the Tolrà specimen plated in Calicó and one in the Banco de Mexico Collection.)

By carefully excluding repeat sales of the same coins, we have been able to track just six specimens of the 4 escudos 1732 F in public auction appearances, here in descending order of quality:

1. The present example, found by Geoff Zitver and first offered publicly by Ponterio, October 1993, lot 149, as UNC; subsequently graded NGC MS 60 and sold in Sedwick Auction 22 (November 2017), lot 144
2. The Jack Haskins specimen, plated in Calicó’s 2008 edition of Numismática española, sold as UNC in the Superior auction of June 1976, lot 2498, but visually inferior to the above
3. The Rudman specimen, plated in the KM Standard Catalog references, originally sold in Ponterio, June 1985 (Porraz Collection), lot 1; subsequently Heritage, August 2015, lot 31040, as NGC AU 58
4. A VF+ example sold by Ponterio, August 2011, lot 21279
5. The Banco de Mexico Collection specimen (coin #18855), AVF
6. The Eliasberg specimen, formerly mounted, sold in the American Numismatic Rarities auction of April 2005, lot 3084; subsequently Stack’s Bowers, October 2014 (David Gray Collection), as NGC VF Details

Of these six coins, only the first two can be proven as being salvaged from the 1733 Fleet.

While we cannot be sure that this census is complete, the rarity of the 1732 F 4 escudos is undeniably considerable, particularly in such choice grade and with an exciting shipwreck provenance, appealing to collectors of Mexican gold, Spanish colonial coinage, and shipwreck history alike. Together with the corresponding 2 escudos and 1 escudo of 1732 offered in the next two lots, this coin represents a unique opportunity to assemble a top-quality denomination set of the first machine-struck gold coins of the Americas. From the 1733 Fleet, pedigreed to the Ponterio auction of October 1993 (lot 149, plated on both covers of the catalog).
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