Watch List notes:

Large silver ingot #758 from Oruro, 78 lb 9.28 oz troy, Class Factor 0.9, with markings of manifest LXXXVIII (88), fineness IIUCCCLXXX (2380/2400), owner/shipper, silvermaster and tax stamps, ex-Atocha (1622), ex-Caesars Palace auction (1987). 15-1/2" x 5-1/2" x 3". Oruro bars, like this one, tend to have unique shapes and markings, and all have a cylindrical assayer's "bite" at one end (here very crude, with silver from the sides folded around it) as opposed to the double scoops on Potosi bars, the unique markings on this piece being an unprecedented EIGHT small circular tax stamps, most of them complete and showing PHILIPVS D G around a simple shield with lions and castles, the fineness in the middle particularly bold and preceded by assayer cartouche BINI(?), with another, unreadable cartouche (date?) to the right of the fineness, also with two very bold owner/shipper marks, one with cross potent with diagonal slash and the other a typical H-diamond-3 monogram right next to silvermaster de Vreder's V, also with unique series of six crude C's at other end (near bite), particularly desirable with provenance to the original Las Vegas 1987 auction and Gene Lyon manifest research. From the Atocha (1622), with original Fisher photo-certificate #85A-S758, pedigreed to the Caesars Palace auction of September 26, 1987 (lot #135), with original catalog (also with January 1988 Skin Diver magazine reporting on the results), and with original manifest report from Gene Lyon. Recovered from: Atocha, sunk in 1622 west of Key West, Florida

Estimate: $25000-50000