Topic: SPANISH COB COINS
The Spanish empire in the 16th century was fueled by silver bullion which financed King Philip II’s war machine but attracted hordes of pirates, corsairs, and privateers eager for plunder. The treasure initially taken from the Aztec and Incan empires by Spain earlier in the century was quickly spent, so a money-starved Spain anxiously sought the source of this wealth. By 1545 they located the fabled “mountain of silver” – Cerro Rico de Potosi – atop a 13,000-foot plateau amidst the Andes mountains in present day Bolivia. Potosi was the site of the largest natural deposit if silver in the world. It would soon account for 60% of the world’s mined silver. Spain started mining the mountain in 1545 using indigenous slave labor and established a mint there in 1574. The mint struck “cob coins” of purified silver that was shipped back to Spain for economic circulation.
The trek homewards from the mines was long and arduous. Llama and mule trains carried satchels of coins down steep valleys to the Pacific Ocean where they were shipped by sea to Panama. More mule trains carried the silver across a narrow isthmus to Nombre de Dios on the Caribbean side. Twice a year, treasure ships transported the silver from Panama across the Atlantic to Spain. Along the way, pirates and privateers occasionally picked off a treasure ship, while hurricanes sunk some of the others. Sometimes pirates robbed mule trains crossing the Panama isthmus (Francis Drake in 1573, for instance). Spain began using a convoy system to ensure the treasure made it home so that her creditors would be paid. An overextended Spanish Empire was on the verge of insolvency every year despite the vast treasure she exacted from the mines of Potosi, so every shipment was vital. A lesser-known and lesser-utilized pathway for transporting silver was down Rio de la Plata (“river of silver) via Buenos Aires and the south Atlantic.
Cob coins were crudely rounded pieces of silver shaped like a shield (concave on one side and convex on the other). They were assayed (inspected for purity and weight standards) in Potosi before being transported to Spain. The coins were stamped with a cross on one side and heraldic symbols representing the King of Spain on the other side, along with the Latin spelling for Philip. The letter “P” for the Potosi mint and another letter for the coin series (based on the assayer overseeing the crop) were also present. When the assayer changed, a new assayer letter was used. In 1586 the assayer letter changed from B to A, for example.
A cob coin containing 25 grams of silver was called the Spanish Dollar. It was worth eight Spanish reales. Cutting the coin into eight pieces (pesos) would yield one reale per piece; hence the Spanish dollar was nicknamed “piece of eight.” Pieces of eight were made famous in pirate folklore from the 16th to the 18th centuries. In the 16th century, one piece of eight was worth about 5 shillings (a generous weekly wage for a skilled laborer). An English coin known as a “crown” was the equivalent of a Spanish dollar.
A horde of Spanish cob coins minted in 1586 are featured in my nautical fiction novels “Voyage of Reprisal” and its sequel “The English Corsair.”
