Watch List notes:

Argentina (River Plate Provinces), 8 escudos, 1832/1P, La Rioja mint, NGC MS 62, ex-Gund. Janson-17; KM-21. Bold strike for the issue, with fully detailed sunface and light toning over luster throughout, and virtually none of the natural flaws normally present, just an area of erasure around the last digit of the date as expected (no clean 1832 dates are known). Second sunface type after the Potosi issues of 1813-15. The Potosi mint was lost to the royalists in 1815 and hostilities with Spain were ended in 1824, in which year a mint was created in La Rioja to continue striking coins (under assayer Manuel Pineyro) at the national level under the name of the River Plate Provinces. Finding any problem-free example of this type (which lasted only until 1836) is rather difficult, indicative of the political turbulence of the period (the year 1832 in fact being the same year the caudillo Facundo Quiroga returned to La Rioja after defeating Unitarian forces under Lamadrid), so such a brilliant example as this is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for both the specialist and the type-collector. NGC #4842623-002. Pedigreed to the George Gund III collection (Stack's auction of January 2007, lot 3220). Sports fans might recognize Gund as a former owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers (NBA) and the San Jose Sharks (NHL).
($20000-40000)