Watch List notes:

Bogota (formerly attributed to Cartagena), Colombia, cob 2 escudos, 162(2), posthumous Philip III, no assayer, mintmark SF to left, extremely rare and important first gold issue of the New World, PCGS AU58, ex-Santa Margarita (1622, designated on label). Restrepo-M10.1; S-C5 (under Cartagena); KM-4.3 (under Cartagena); CT-16 (under Cartagena). 6.7 grams. Broad flan with full king's name and clear bottom of III ordinal (posthumous issue), bold SF to left of full shield with bold border but weak interior, the full cross also weakly struck (indicative of the provisional nature of this type), as is also the date. When this curious issue was first discovered and attributed to Colombia in the 1980s, experts like Joseph Lasser and Frank Sedwick believed its style was attributable to the Cartagena mint, but more recent research by Jorge Proctor has proven that the SF mintmark is indeed for Santa Fe (Bogota). What has been clear all along, however, is the fact that this issue represents the very first gold coins made in the New World, pre-dating the Mexico (1679) and Lima (1696) mints by several decades. Of the eight examples known (most of which came from the Santa Margarita), this coin is census specimen #8 ("Sedwick Specimen 2") in Herman Blanton's article "1622 Cartagena (Colombia) 2 Escudos, a Revised Census" in the NI Bulletin, Vol. 49, Nos. 7 / 8, July / August 2014, pp. 128-136. It is important to note that until the Eldorado sale (Stack's Bowers, January 2018), only two specimens have changed hands in the past decade. From the Santa Margarita (1622), with Fisher tag and photo-certificate #178-M-80, plus 2001 appraisal, pedigreed to our Auction #6, with original lot-tag #41. PCGS #36269917.
(15000 - 30000 USD)