There were plenty of Spanish galleons that traveled the seas with their treasure but they were not the only country. Plenty of French, English and the Dutch traveled with the treasure laden ships. These voyages went from the New World to the Orient and back.

Spain plundered billions of dollars of treasure between 1492 and the 19th century. They collected silver, gold, gems, and other treasure from many countries from South and Central America and the Caribbean. The Spanish loaded it into the galleons from their ports and sailed them to their home with armed escorts. These are known as the “Spanish Treasure Fleet.”

In the Spanish mints at Lima, Bogotá, Potosi, and a few others like Mexico City, the colonist would work 24 hours a day to mint coins. The coins they produced were irregular as the minting process was not very refined. The “macuquinas” that were made were often referred to as “cobs.” After the miners and smelters would craft a bar of silver the craftsmen would slice off the ends of silver or gold bars to create blanks, better know as “planchets.” After the blank, or planchet has been sliced off its trimmed to the appropriate weight and then placed in a die and struck. This crude process made it very difficult, actually impossible, for any cobs to be alike.

Interestingly enough and very important for the collector of shipwreck treasure or just cobs, most of the coins sent over to Spain were remelted and restruck into Spanish coins. The Spanish government wanted better control over the raw materials like silver and gold. That’s one of the reasons that finding or collecting shipwreck coins has become a popular hobby. Your getting a piece of history that made is 100’s of years with out being touched.

Before the advent of mechanical pressed in the 18th century cobs were struck between the years of 1500 and the mid to late 18th century. The presses were first introduced in Mexico and then later moved down to South America. There were two types of milled coins produced, one called “Pillar” and the other “Bust.” Pillar coins got their name for the design of a globe and two pillars on each side of it, hence “Pillar.” The busts were reserved for a portrait of the current king.

Pillar cob coins began the minting process in 1732 and were only mined until 1771-2. Busts cob coins on the other hand were minted in both silver and gold with silver minting starting in 1772 and gold in 1732. Every type of cob was minted in denominations of 8, 4, 2, 1, ½ and ¼ reales in silver.