Gold ingots in Spain

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(Free-Press-Release.com) February 19, 2006 --

Along with cob coinage the mints also produced gold (and silver) ingots for export. The gold would be extracted from the ore at the mint by melting. Workers would then take a wooden box and fill it with wet sand. They would then ram an iron rod into the sand to form ingot sized holes in the wet sand at about three inches apart. A crucible was then used to pour the molten gold into the cavities. Once the gold was cooled the ingots were removed and hammer stamped with the mint mark and the royal seal to show that the twenty percent royal tax known as the Quinto, had been paid. Like the crude hammer struck cob coinage, this method of ingot bar production was an older technique used in the more primitive conditions of the New World. By the mid-seventeenth century much of Europe had moved to cast iron ingot molds that produced the familiar standard-sized rectangular bars. Below are five 22-carat gold ingot bars from the Mexico mint in 1659 recovered from the 1733 Fleet Wreck by Mel Fisher. These bars were acquired on May 6, 1973 by Mr. Robert Gore from Armada research Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Treasure Salvors.

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