Rare 1743 Potosi 8 Reales PCGS VF-35 – Finest Known
Item #CC-0665 | 1743 Potosi 8 Reales PCGS VF-35 – Finest Known
Mint: Potosi, Bolivia
Assayer: “C” for Jose Carnicer
Ruler/Period: King Philip V
Grade: VF-35
For details and population on this coin from PCGS, click on the serial number here: 50313709
Description: This is a very nice example of a 1743 Potosi 8 reales that happens to be the only and finest example graded by PCGS. What makes this particular specimen special is that the obverse displays a nicely centered and well defined date, pillars and waves, a strong assayer’s initial, and the “8” denomination. The reverse displays a complete cross with softly struck castles and lions.
Seeing as this coin is the finest and only example graded by PCGS, makes it obviously rare and makes you wonder why there haven’t been others graded. Well, there is a fascinating story behind this!
The Royal Family Privateers
During the mid 18th century, Spain was at war with Britain and on July 10, 1745, the British seized a massive amount of Spanish Colonial silver in the North Atlantic by two British privateers, the “Prince Frederick” captained by James Talbot and the “Duke” captained by John Morecock. These ships were part of a group known as the “Royal Family Privateers” as each vessel was named after a member of the Royal Family at the time.
Commanded by Captain James Talbot, the little fleet initially consisted of three armed ships, the 500-ton 30-gun flagship “Prince Frederick”, the 300-ton 20-gun “Duke” and the much smaller “Prince George” which capsized and sank five days out with the loss of all but twenty of her crew.
The flotilla left Cowes, England on June 2, 1745 and on July 10th, whilst cruising the North Atlantic between the Azores and the Newfoundland Banks, sighted three unidentified vessels which immediately turned away. Chased and challenged by Talbot, the mystery ships ran up French colors, formed into a ragged line for protection and prepared to defend themselves. The French ships were the Louis Erasmus, the Marquis d’ Antin, and the Notre Dame de la Déliverance. The Notre Dame fled as night fell and escaped, while the other two were engaged with the Duke and Prince Frederick.
Captain Talbot’s own account of the affair was subsequently published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in September of 1745 (pages 418-419 shown below) where he described it as a “sanguinary fight” in which “we entertained each other for three hours at warm work”. After suffering a serious pounding at the hand of the superb gunnery of the British sailors, both French ships surrendered.
Captain Talbot states that after the battle “when my boat returned from on board the last ship I took, I was agreeably surprised to find the first officer prisoner that came on board, tell me they came from Callao in Peru, until then, I took them to be Martinico ships.” As the treasure primarily consisted of Pieces of Eight bearing the Lima mintmark it was requested that coins taken from these prizes might bear the name “Lima” to celebrate the exploit.
Another first-hand account of circumstances that occurred after the French surrendered was recorded in a letter by a lieutenant on board the Prince Frederick, dated August 6, 1745 and printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine in September of 1745 (pages 428-429 shown at left).
“Sir, The 12th of July (which is now the toast here) we took two Rich ships the Marquis d’ Antin and the Louis Erasmus.
As we shot their masts away we were obliged to tow them for three weeks, till we got here, in which we had the good fortune never to be disturbed by Jack Spaniards or Frenchmen. These ships went out four years ago to Peru and Chile and had on board as their bills of lading now come to hand, 1 million sterling and gold and silver coin, besides 800 tons of Cocoa and we are every day discovering more treasure that has been concealed.
There were a vast number of persons of great distinction of France, Spain, Peru, etc. We have a Marquis of France, a Governor of Peru, Friars in abundance, one of whom threw a gold chalice into the sea of great value that it should not come into our hands.
We treated our prisoners in such a manner as none were ever treated before. We took not the value of a penny neither watches, money, rings or swords from any of those gentlemen. We took all the cash and plate the common people had and attending them on shore here, we gave every common man 20 guineas. They say here they were treated as friends, not as common enemies.
We sent an express to London, and she’ll wait here for a convoy. We are now overhauling our prizes, and moving the cocoa into other ships, and even now and then finding wedges of gold, besides this day the Spanish gentleman (finding we would not ransom the ships as they wanted) have discovered a vast treasure hid in the sides of the ships, for which we are to give them a large premium. I compute my share as near as we can guess will come to about 3500 £.
Your assured friend J.S.”
The French ships were so heavy laden with treasure, that Talbot decided to tow both prizes home rather than risking overloading his own vessels, which themselves had suffered damage in the fight. The journey back to England took three weeks and required superb seamanship. The four ships arrived safely at Bristol on September 8th, 1745 and it wasn’t until October 1st that the treasure was unloaded and assessed. In all, there were 1,093 chests of silver bullion which, together with large quantities of gold and silver plate and other valuables that filled 45 horse drawn wagons. The weight of the treasure was estimated to be over 78 tons.
The sheer volume of treasure captured from the French ships was staggering. The accounting of the treasure taken from each ship is listed in the 1745 edition of The Gentleman’s Magazine (Page 419 shown at left)
The Louis Erasmus held:
- 1,277,726 Pieces of Eight
- $221,229 worth of gold pistoles and doubloons
- $30,000 worth of gold bars
- $10,000 worth of wrought plate
Total value was $1,538,955 in 1745 currency.
The Marquis d’Antin held:
- 1,387,589 Pieces of Eight
- $79,464 worth of gold doubloons
- $2,000 worth of gold bars
- $1,000 worth of wrought plate
Total value was $1,470,053 in 1745 currency.
The combined haul was valued at $3,009,008.00.
Today, the treasure captured from both ships would have been worth in excess of $390,000,000.
The Notre Dame de la Déliverance, which had escaped the Prince Frederick and the Duke on July 10th was captured two weeks later on July 24th and an article written in the October 4, 1745 edition of “The Scots Magazine” as well as the “London Gazette”, reported that “the Notre Dame de la Déliverance (which escaped from the Prince Frederick and the Duke) a French ship from Lima having on board 300,000 £ Stirling in gold, silver, and a cargo of cocoa, Peruvian wool, and Jesuits Bark taken by the Sutherland and Chester.” (Jesuit’s Bark was a remedy for malaria, as the bark contains quinine.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit’s_bark
The National Archives of the United Kingdom provides more details and states “the Notre Dame de la Déliverance was a French merchant ship contracted as a Spanish register ship (300 tons, 22 guns, 60 men and 1 passenger) bound from Callao, Peru to [Cadiz], laden with $1,280,000 in silver, and cocoa, in company with the Marquis D’Antin and the Louis Erasme; the two latter ships (carrying $3,000,000 in silver plus cargo) were taken in a fight on July 10th 1745 by the privateers Prince Frederick (James Talbot commanding) and Duke (Morecock commanding), but the Deliverance fled to take refuge in Louisbourg.
Deliverance (in morning fog, and by the deception of the armed brigantine Boston Packet of Massachusetts (William Fletcher commanding, since deceased) acting on Fletcher’s initiative as a lure under French colours) was taken on 28 July/13 August 1745 off Cape Breton Island by HMS Sunderland (John Brett commanding), and HMS Chester (Philip Durell commanding), both coming out from Louisbourg under French colours, and was brought into Louisbourg, where the ship was broken up in search of the treasure.” Source: Captured ship: Notre Dame de la Deliverance or Nuestra Senora de la Delibranza of St… | The National Archives
The total captured silver coin from the three ships would be about 3,945,315 Pieces of Eight.
Summary of Conclusions
There is some debate on how much silver Admiral George Anson actually captured in 1743 from the Spanish Galleon Covadonga. Some accounts state that it was 1,313,843 Pieces of Eight and 35,682 ounces of virgin silver and plate. However, according to the testimony of Commodore Anson recorded in the 1744 edition of the Gentleman’s magazine on page 336 it states that “the cargo which Commodore Anson has brought home with him is as follows, 2,600,000 pieces of eight, 150,000 ounces of plate, 10 bars of gold, and a large quantity of gold and silver dust in the whole to the amount of £1,250,000 sterling.” The 1,313,843 Pieces of Eight and 35,682 ounces of virgin silver and plate captured by Commodore Anson was the treasure from the Covadonga alone and didn’t include other treasure taken from the raiding of the Peruvian town of Paita or the capture of numerous other ships during his 3 years and 9 months at sea.
Did all the Pieces of Eight really come solely from the Lima mint? Seeing as over 2,665,315 Pieces of Eight were captured from the Erasmus and Marquis d’ Antin, and approximately another 1,280,000 from the Notre Dame de la Déliverance you have to wonder how the mint at Lima could produce this much coin by itself. Even if the mint could produce 1,000,000 coins in a year, they would only have 500,000 minted by the time the 3 ships left Callao in late May or June. Seeing as Spanish treasure fleets left Peru for Spain twice a year, it is unlikely that the Lima mint had stored 4 million plus pieces from the year before. Spain desperately needed this silver, which means some of the coins had to have come from another mint. The mint located in Mexico was too far away and that would leave only one other option – the mint located in Potosi, also known as the Mountain of Silver.
What most likely happened is that the bulk of the treasure’s origin was a case of mistaken identity and the British assumed all the coins came from the Lima mint.
Eight reales minted from 1742 – 1745 at both the Lima and Potosi mints display almost identical designs and it was probably of little concern for the British what mint all the coins came from. Both mints coins display very similar pillar and waves designs on one side and the Jerusalem cross with castles and lions on the other. It would be very difficult to differentiate one from another especially as these coins were crudely struck and the mint marks were not always visible.
It is our opinion that one of the main reasons why this coin is so rare is that the bulk of the silver coins minted in Lima and Potosi in 1743 were captured by the British and melted down, which makes this coin a very rare survivor indeed!
For a more in-depth look into the history of these captured ships and the origin of the Spanish silver, read our article titled “Rare British Coins Commemorating Victories over the Spanish” here: https://commodorecoins.com/treasure-blog/british-silver-coins-commemorating-victory-at-sea/
In stock
$1,500.00
