Tumbaga!

[CMD]

I have a close friend who collects shipwreck artifacts. He also, like myself, has a meteorite collection.

Anyway, I just sold a meteorite to my friend, and he threw this unique piece in with it. What a unique piece of history, despite its nondescript appearance. It's called tumbaga. Tumbaga was an alloy of copper and gold used by Mesoamericans to make figurines, etc. Can also be an alloy of gold, copper, or silver. Well, Cortez melted down the Aztec gold, silver, and copper artifacts, made crude ingots of them, called tumbaga bars, and shipped them to Spain, where the Spanish remelted them into their seperate constituants. As a result, tumbaga bars are documented, but none survived once they reached Spain and were remelted.

Until 1993, when a c. 1528 shipwreck was discovered near Grand Bahama Island, and 200 Tumbaga bars were discovered. The only tumbaga bars known. This was the melted down treasure of the Aztecs. Many bars bore the assay mark of a known conquistador and associate of Cortez. Also recovered were small pieces of tumbaga, and that's what this is. An actual piece of the treasure plundered by Cortez and melted down to send to Spain. On one edge, it was filed down by someone at that time checking the silver content. You can also see the copper content from the blue coloration.

Just blown away by owning a melted down piece of the plundered Aztec treasure! My friend actually owns a 2 pound tumbaga ingot with assay mark!

Just heard from my friend. He's stopping by tommorow with his gold and silver bars, and I will photograph them for sure.

https://www.sedwickcoins.com/shipwreck_histories/tumbaga.htm

https://www.newworldtreasures.com/tbars.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Tumbaga-Saga-Treasure-Conquistadors/dp/0982081820

[CMD]

An edge cut, by a contemporary, to check on silver content:

[Tam]

Interesting Charlie . Plundered Aztec treasure is right . It’s mind boggling how the past was not about preserving a find but destroying it .
All the destruction of countries against countries people against people .
You wonder what the future will think of us .
I also love the rare stories about people finding gold coins on the beaches after a hurricane on the Fl coast .

[Hoss]

learn something new every day on arrowheads.com Thanks for that information Charlie. I cant wait to see the ingots please post them when you get a chance.

[CMD]

Will do, Hoss.

[Scorpion68]

Hey Charlie - I remember the stories I heard about beach finds when I was stationed in Puerto Rico. We were located on the northeastern coast of PR and stuff was always washing up. One of the coin collectors I was stationed with actually found a Spanish Doubloon that I believe was silver rather than gold. Can't remember his name but it was quite the story around base. Interesting post. I to am intrigued about meteorites but have never found one.

[OnewiththewilD]

Unbelievable. A true historical item and precious for sure! Heck I bet there’s more Clovis points out there than there is that stuff. Very very cool

[Tam]

How would you even know you found a meteorite ? That’s another thread I guess .

[CMD]

Boy, I'll say. I have posted some of my specimens here, but I am not a hunter. I could describe it, but it would take me a long time. It's a very complex subject, really. In the meantime, I highly recommend the Nova episode at the YouTube link in this thread, for the incredible story of the biggest meteor strike in our lifetime, which injured over 1000 people in Russia just a few years ago:

https://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/other-activities-hobbies-gc26/off-the-wall-topics-gc13/250754-meteor-strike

[CMD]

And look, Tam, if you were in Georgia now, you might be able to hunt for meteorites:

http://amp.wvtm13.com/article/fireball-caught-on-video-in-alabama-georgia/22762816

[Josie]

I love this site. That is a great piece of history in your hand!

[CMD]

Hey Charlie - I remember the stories I heard about beach finds when I was stationed in Puerto Rico. We were located on the northeastern coast of PR and stuff was always washing up. One of the coin collectors I was stationed with actually found a Spanish Doubloon that I believe was silver rather than gold. Can't remember his name but it was quite the story around base. Interesting post. I to am intrigued about meteorites but have never found one.

Yeah, and like Tam mentioned, people get lucky finding coins on Florida beaches as well, I believe from the famous 1715 fleet. A number of years ago, the late Mel Fisher was in town, he of the Atocha discovery, one of the Spanish vessels that sank off the Florida Keys in a 1622 hurricane. I went to see his display, got caught up in the mystique of it all, and ended up buying two Atocha pieces of eight from one of the investors. I was able to obtain a coin of Philip II, and wanted one of those most of all because I knew it was minted less then 100 years after Columbus's first voyage. Once the Spanish established New World mints, they could send the silver to Spain as coins. Potosi, Bolivia had a mountain made of silver, it still produces to this day I believe. At the time it was part of Peru.

Although the Spanish silver coins from Potosi are not Native American artifacts, the natives made those coins. Slave labor made those coins. The oldest of the Atocha coins I own was made between 1576-1586. A few years ago, I created a thread about the Spanish New World mints and native labor. There is a photo of the coin in question, and illustrations of what the mint would have looked like here:

https://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/other-activities-hobbies-gc26/all-things-collectable-gc44/79046-of-native-slaves-and-silver

[Kyflintguy]

Amazing piece of history Charlie, i had never heard of Tumbaga. Thanks for sharing it!

[CMD]

I had never heard of it, either, Josh. And not a lot of info online, I guess because none but those bars from the 1528 shipwreck ever survived. My friend is bringing some literature over tomorrow, so looking forward to that...

[-=METACOM=-]

That's amazing, thanks for sharing, I enjoyed that.

[Scorpion68]

Thanks for the history lesson Charlie. Always glad to add to my memory banks.

[Tam]

Hey Charlie , thanks for the link very good indeed .
I’ ll pm you on a women I met from Siberia and her take on that and the US . Way to political .

[2ndoldman]

Send it my way too Tamara.

[CMD]

Hoss asked me to post photos of my friend's silver bars from the Spanish c. 1528 shipwreck, but I need to make some corrections as well. The silver is actually associated, not with the Aztecs, but rather their enemies the Tarascans, who ruled over an empire just to the west of the Aztecs. In fact, the two empires often fought, and it seems the Aztecs usually lost, so the Tarascan empire prevented the Aztecs from extending to the northwest into western Mexico.

In 1522, after Cortez had finished conquering the Aztecs, the Spanish learned the Tarascans, highly skilled metallurgists, had a great deal of gold and silver as well, and a conquistador by the name of Cristobal de Olid led a force of Spanish and native allies into the Tarascan territory. Much of the gold and silver objects held by the Tarascans was kept in storage, and regarded as belonging to their gods, but, having seen what the Spanish had done to the Aztecs, the Tarascans chose not to fight, and many chests of gold and silver objects and jewelry were melted down. And it was that gold and silver that was found in the form of tumbaga bars on the c. 1528 shipwreck.

There is much more that I need to learn to understand the story of the foundries Cortez and associates used, in Tenochtitlan, Mexico City, to melt down the treasures of the Aztecs and Tarascans. I also have a lot to learn about the small piece of melted silver I now own, which was known as plata corriente, and was used as money in the New World, prior to the first mints being established in 1535. These small pieces were to bear the tax stamp of the King of Spain, who was to receive 1/5 of all treasure melted down, both in the form of bars, and later, actual coins. I can find very little about this plata corriente online, but I do know, since my piece shows no portion of a tax stamp, then my piece has to have been illegal tender. Well, then or now, we do like to avoid taxes, lol. I don't know if these small pieces were part of the tumbaga cargo bound for the King, or personal property of someone onboard ship, so I guess it could represent melted down silver of either the Aztecs or the Tarascans. But this illegal "coinage" can date no later then a mere 7 years after the fall of the Aztec empire.

There is a bit of info here, and I am reading the book from which this excerpt is taken:

https://www.sedwickcoins.com/articles/augigarcia_tumbagasaga.pdf

There are only a little over 200 tumbaga bars in existence. This one weighs 7.62 pounds:



This bar weighs 1.86 pounds:



Look close, and you can see the tax stamp on the 1.86 pound bar:



My plata corriente is the far right piece in lot 131, with a little info on what it represents:

[Kyflintguy]

Awesome Charlie! It's so cool to see these items that correlate to a very specific time in the the history of Meso-America. I put the cool factor on Tumbaga at a 10+ lol, how much more interesting can something get than to be associated with ancient Aztec/Tarascan looted treasure found on a shipwrecked Spanish gallion?! That's on "Indians Jones" level cool in my book. Thanks for the history lesson and sharing the additional photos and information!

[CMD]

You're welcome of course. I have a lot to learn, all new to me. My friend got into treasure/shipwreck artifacts years ago, and has an awesome collection. And I agree where the cool factor is concerned!