Watch List notes:

Silver "tumbaga" bar #M-33, 2318 grams, marked with fineness IVCC L (1250/2400), code RC, owner/assayer B~Vo and partial tax stamp, ex-"Tumbaga Wreck," ex-Eidel, Armstrong Plate. 2315 grams, 7" x 3" x 1". An attractive "half brick" (a shape unique to this wreck, like a typical building brick but half as thick) with sharply sloping sides and fairly smooth surfaces (neatly cast), lightly toned here and there, its bottom face showing a compact grouping of boxed markings consisting of owner/assayer BV with ~ above the B and o above the V (believed to stand for Bernardino Vazquez de Tapia), and below that a boxed R and boxed C (placing it in the "C" group of an "R" series of batches), and at bottom a boxed IVCC and boxed L for fineness 1250/2400 (52%), all to the left of partial circular tax stamp showing the letters LV that was clear enough to merit inclusion in Armstrong's photo-pages. A small patch of light green (leached copper) appears at upper left. One corner shows a typical diagonal assayer's "bite." A premium piece for its size. From the "Tumbaga Wreck" (ca. 1528), with Sedwick photo-certificate, and pedigreed to the Charlie Eidel Collection (purchased from Frank Sedwick on Nov. 14, 1995), with collector's notes, its markings plated on page 40 of Doug Armstrong's Tumbaga Silver for Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (1993).
($5000-7500)