Watch List notes:

Guatemala
Central American Republic 8 Reales 1846/2 NG-AE/MA MS63 NGC, Nueva Guatemala mint, KM4. Choice Uncirculated and sharply struck with attractive toning, with appealing golden color on the obverse, and hints of red and blue on the reverse. Struck from very late state dies, as always seen for this overdate/assayer combination variety. Rare and very desirable in this quality, and historically important since it is the last coin of this beautiful series, as explained following. The 1846-NG 8 Reales were struck after a hiatus of 3 years (the last date coined was in 1842) and exist in three varieties: two with assayer initials "MA" (rare in any grade) or "A" both with the misspelled CRESCA legend (similar to all the other dates in the series, except for the variety of the present example) and one with assayer initials "AE" and the correct spelling CREZCA (with "Z" over "S"). Most (or all) of these coins come from the same obverse die, albeit the "AE" coins show a more deteriorated die state and were thus clearly struck later (as one would also expect from the corrected spelling). However, all the 1847 NG 8 Reales again show the incorrect CRESCA spelling (and all have the single "A" assayer initial) which would seem puzzling since reverting to an error. An analysis of the contemporary documentation has allowed the cataloguer to conclude that the 1846 NG-AE coin was in fact struck at a much later date and thus explain this apparent incongruence. First note that until 1844, the Guatemala mint had two working assayers: 1 sup st /sup assayer Manuel Munoz and 2 sup nd /sup assayer Apolinario Espana. Munoz passed away on December 19, 1843, and Espana was promoted to replace him on January 5, 1844 while the 2 sup nd /sup assayer post vas left vacant due to economic considerations and so he still was the sole assayer in 1854. It is thus clear that the "M" and "A" initials must correspond to those two Mint employees. We also know that Engraver Casildo Espana (brother of Apolinario) wrote on December 16, 1847 to the Mint's Director Manuel Cerezo, indicating that the die used for the 8 Reales coins had shown up to that date the misspelling CRESCA on the reverse legend, and asking permission to change it to the correct CREZCA for the coinage of 1848. Cerezo forwarded this request on the following day to the Minister of Exchequer also asking whether the legend on the coinage should be changed to REPUBLICA DE GUATEMALA (since the Central American Republic had been dismantled). The reply was typically bureaucratic in that the mint should continue to strike the 8 Reales coins without any change in the dies including the 1847 date until new designs for the Republican coinage were approved and completed. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that all the 8 Reales struck in 1846 were of the CRESCA variety (thus featuring the "MA" and "A" initials) since they were struck prior to the mentioned letter of December 1847 which interrupts the intention to correct the CRESCA spelling error. It is likely that the first coins struck in 1846 (the first struck after a hiatus of 3 years, as noted previously) used left-over dies from 1842 featuring the "MA" initials. A new correct die with only the "A" initial must have been employed shortly thereafter (which explains the rarity of the 1846 NG-MA 8 Reales) and used for the rest of the year. Then, coins were struck in all of 1847 (and also in subsequent years, following the December 1847 instructions) using reverse dies with only the "A" initial: reverse die links between 1846 NG-A and 1847 NG-A coins and 1847/6 NG-A overdates can be found proving that this was the actual sequence in time. Naturally, this also explains the availability of the 1847 NG-A coins. The "AE" initials on the 1846 NG-AE coins clearly correspond to the single assayer (Apolinario Espana) working between 1844 and 1854, but they must have been struck after the series of 1846 and 1847 NG-A coins: this is entirely consistent with the more deteriorated dies used to mint the 1846 NG-AE specimens, as noted previously. Since these "AE" initials also appear on the extremely rare Columbus 8 Reales pattern of 1854, the cataloger finally concludes that the present coin was likely struck ca. 1853-1854. As noted above, the last coin in the wildly popular Central American Republic 8 Reales series in unusually fine preservation and thus sure to attract sustained interest.From the Nob Hill Collection

Estimate: 2500-3000 USD