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C93. Nuevo Reino de Granada (modern Colombia). Cartagena RNE 1628/7 two escudos. Lustrous, virtually mint state, sharply struck. By far the finest two escudos of the entire Cartagena RNE series 1626-30. NGC AU 58. Highest graded Cartagena RNE (the first gold series struck in the Americas).
Cartagena struck gold from late 1626 until the spring of 1635, with mandated shut down for most of 1630. In its first four years it operated as a "branch" (oficina) of the Santa Fe mint without official authorization to strike gold. It used the mint mark RN or NR for Nuevo Reino, and Juan de la Era (E) was its only assayer. In May of 1630 Philip IV was persuaded to recognize Cartagena as a mint in its own right. C became its mint mark. Dated RNE Cartagena two escudos are very rare, the earliest and probably the rarest Spanish Colonial gold cob series. The entire 1626-1630 series is represented by six dated coins: one 1626, one 1627, three 1628, and one 1629. None of the original RNE mintages are yet published, but they were not large--Jorge Proctor will soon be publishing them. Santa Fe was continually complaining in the late 1620's about the flood of Cartagena gold in the Nuevo Reino. Curiously, all three dated 1628 are from a single cross die on which an oversize 8 is crudely engraved over a 7.
The Treasurer and leaseholder of both Nuevo Reino mints in the 1626-35 period was the notorious Capt. Alonso Turrillo de Yerba. Turrillo persuaded Philip III to authorize Colombian mints by promising to mint and circulate a billon coinage that would be lucrative to the king. That coinage never got off the ground because of intense local resistance, but Turrillo managed to turn a profit on his mints by striking an increasingly large gold coinage at both Nuevo Reino mints. The first circulating gold coinage of the Americas was Turrillo's RNE Cartagena coinage.
Available Price on request. Terravitan@aol.com or 480-595-1293
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