USA, Colonial New York, cob 8 Réales, with a pronounced plug, 22.95g/354.1gr. Sea-salvage, poor but extremely rare £100-150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Cut and Countermarked Coins formed by the late Edward Roehrs.

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Provenance: Recovered from the wreck of HMS Feversham, early 1990s; Coin Galleries Mailbid Sale, 15 April 1998 (1783).

This and the following two lots were recovered from the wreck of HMS Feversham, a fifth rate 32 gun frigate, which sank at Scatarie Island, off Cape Breton, on 7 October 1711, while on a mission to support the attempt to capture Quebec from the French which was later aborted. The coins recovered reveal a representative cross section of what was in circulation in colonial New York at the time. These coins were drawn from the New York Victualling Office of the British Treasury by the ship’s purser with a requisition signed by Capt. Paxton, commander of the Feversham, to pay for provisions. Most surprising was the high percentage of New England coinage from Massachusetts, mainly willow, oak and pine tree shillings and the Spanish-American ‘cobs’ that had been weight-regulated by the insertion of plugs