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Our Treasure
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The Atocha
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Some History
The illustration to the right shows the assayer and his Indian slave assistants engaged in producing coins of the mint. The Indian in the center is taking freshly poured strips of silver and beating the strips flat. He then hands the beaten strips to the worker at the left, who cuts the strips into coin planchets. The Indian at the right takes these coin planchets. and puts them one at a time on top of the bottom coin die. He then takes another die and places it on top of the coin planchet and strikes the dies with a hammer, which impresses the die design on both sides of the coin planchet. The newly struck coins are passed to the assayer who weighs them and clips off any excess silver. The coins are now ready for distribution to pay for trade goods, wages and the ever-increasing national debt of Spain.
Due to the method used to make the coins, no two coins look alike. The coins of this period are often called cob coins. This term comes from a simplification of the Spanish phrase, "cabo de barra", or made from an end of a bar. The coins, like the silver ingots that were being mined, are made from a very fine quality of silver. The purity ranges from about 92% to 98% silver with the impurities being copper or platinum depending on which mine the silver came from.
The crude hand struck process was replaced in 1733 with the "screw press"
method which eliminated the irregularity stamped pattern inherent to hand held dies. The
screw press was a technological jump. The dies were no longer held by hand. The coin was
set between two dies and the top die was screwed down to the bottom die using the power of
two massive weights opposing each other above the press. This process formed near perfect
coins.
Identifying Spanish Coins By Their Cross Designs
The cross on the Spanish coin symbolizes the union of church and state and the premise that Spain was the most powerful Catholic country in the world. The basis for all the crosses that appear on the reverse side of the coins is the Jerusalem cross or Crusader's cross.
The "Cruz Griega" or Greek Cross was used by the New World mints of Potosi, LaPlata, Lima, Bogotá and Cartagena. Lima was the first mint to begin this design in 1571 and the other mints followed until 1652 when the coin die was changed to the "Pillar & Waves" design.
The Jerusalem cross with the perpendicular arms was used by the Potosi mint from 1652 to 1772 and the Lima mint from 1684 to 1751. These coins are very similar but can be distinguished by their mint marks of "L" and "P" respectively.
The Cruz Florenzada was used only by the Mexico mint on their silver coins. The cross appears to have raised circular dots attached to the ends of the cross, which were meant to look like fleurs-de-lis. Mexican gold coins do not always have the dots on the end and often have just the Jerusalem cross with the perpendicular arm.
The cross side also has the Lions of Leon and the Castles of Castile in the four quadrants of the cross. This symbolizes the joining of the two provinces that eventually united Spain and promoted her to the most influential country in the world and remained that way for almost four centuries.
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