A veritable treasure trove of doubloons and pieces of eight are being auctioned off by Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC in Winter Park, Florida on May 1 and 2. More than 1,000 lots are being auctioned off over the two day period. The majority of them are collections of historic cobs, the original pirate coins. These cobs are handmade Spanish coins that were produced in the period from 1500-1700 and used in the many Spanish colonies of Latin America. It was these coins that composed the treasure galleons that were often the targets of marauding pirates. Check out all of the lots and place your bids online at iCollector.com.

Spanish treasure
In order to maintain the expansion of its empire, Spain built 10 coin mints in its South and Central American colonies: Mexico, Santo Domingo, Peru, Potosi, Panama, Santa Fe de Nuevo Reino, Cartagena, Cuzco, Guatemala and Cuba. Each one of these mints produced cobs. These coins were irregular in size and shape due their method of production. However, they were so prominent that they came to be accepted as valid currency all over the world.

Cobs come in gold (escudos), silver (reales) and copper (maravedis) and were valued on a base-eight system. Thus, one escudo was worth 16 reales and one reale is worth 16 maravedis. They were made through the cutting of bars called ingots. This auction includes a number of ingots that were recovered from shipwrecks. For example, the most highly valued lot at this auction is a large gold ingot from the Dry Tortugas wreck (lot #240). The ship from which this gold bar was recovered is believed to be the Buen Jesus y Nuestra Senora del Rosario from a 1622 Spanish fleet.

Some of the rarest coins to be available at this auction are a heart-shaped cob 8 reale from Potosi (lot #974), a cob 8 escudo from Peru (lot #18) and a cob 8 reales that is featured on the cover of many coin-collecting books (lot #863). 

Pirate antiques
While there is a large selection of Spanish pirate gold and silver available at this auction, there is also a substantial amount of other interesting artifacts from the days of the Spanish Empire. A bronze swivel cannon (lot #1545) and authentic iron treasure chests from the Spanish Armada (lots #1590 & #1591) would make great additions to any collection.

Be sure to visit iCollector.com to see all of the exciting plunder for yourself.